


Do You Want to Build a Snow-Swan?

by uisceB



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Sequel, The Hot and Cold of It, frozen swan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5797543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uisceB/pseuds/uisceB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(not even ashamed of my silly title) Collection of FrozenSwan one-shots that work as a mini sequel to The Hot and Cold of It. All fluff, no plot. Rating: M (or M lite) for sexual content and language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When the Castle's a-Snowin'

**Author's Note:**

> Like it says in the description, pretty much zero plot here, just some sometimes-romantic, sometimes-silly, sometimes-smutty, sometimes-almost-crack-ish, always-fluffy one-shots. All come after the end of The Hot and Cold of It. There’s 9 in total that I’ll be updating every 1-3 days— all of them are mostly written already, they just need a tiny bit more work before I put them out there, hence the delay between each one. Alright, kids, here’s the first one, enjoy!

_**Chapter 1:** In which Anna finds out what all those indoor snowstorms mean and tries really hard not to vomit._

* * *

Anna’s really happy for Elsa. Really. _Very_ happy. She’s got that whole true love thing going on with Emma, who Anna thinks is great, and she smiles all the time now, and has definitely come out of her shell.

It’s just that…sometimes…it would be nice if there wasn’t so much… _snow._ Everywhere.

At first, the snow seems like a happy thing. Anna just assumes maybe Elsa is showing off— Emma has just _officially_ moved to Arendelle in a pretty permanent way (aside from those trips she sometimes has to make back to Storybrooke in order to be the “Savior” or whatever that is) and all of a sudden there are sometimes just these freak snowstorms that start happening inside…in the morning…in the afternoon…at weird hours of the night…

It doesn’t bother Anna too much in the beginning, because, she thinks, well maybe the two of them are just bonding over the fact that they both have magic. Just some nice, happy, innocent fun...Elsa showing off that she can set off an indoor blizzard whenever she feels like it. Sure, it's _weird_ and everything, but Anna doesn't give it much thought.

That is of course until the day she accidentally walks in on her sister and Emma in the throne room, Elsa buck-naked and chest heaving on the throne, Emma kneeling at her feet with her head between her thighs.

And snow. _Everywhere._

Anna bolts from the room, screaming (obviously) that her eyes are on fire, because they _are_ , and flees to the stables where Kristoff is feeding Sven.

_"What—_ oh my god, Anna, what happened, are you alright?" Kristoff exclaims, dropping the carrots in his hands and rushing to her.

"I feel..." Anna pants, putting her arm on Kristoff's shoulder for support, "like I'm gonna..." —what's that saying Henry taught her in Storybrooke?— "... _vom._ I’m gonna vom, Kristoff, _vom.”_

"Well what _happened?"_ Kristoff demands, still panicked. "Are you okay— are the twins okay?"

"Twins are spectacular," Anna pants. "They're snug and safe and oblivious to all that is horrible in this world. But I..." she places her hands on either of Kristoff's shoulders, looking at him with horror. "Kristoff...did you _know_ what those snowstorms were all about?"

Realization dawns in Kristoff's eyes and he grimaces, nodding. "To be honest, that's why I've been spending so much time out here," he says. "It was starting to gross me out in there."

Anna leans back against the stable door, still dazed. "All this time, I thought Elsa was just doing that because she was happy. Not because she was..."

_"...Happy,"_ Kristoff finishes with a knowing wince.

"Do you realize there were twelve snowstorms in the castle yesterday?" Anna asks, bewildered. "Who...who even has _time_ — or _energy_ — for that many...that many..."

"...Orgasms?" Kristoff supplies.

"Agh—! Lalalala _la_ — why would you say that word out _loud_ , that's my _sister,_ ya mook!" Anna cries, smacking him in the shoulder.

"I thought you were happy for her," Kristoff says, rubbing his arm. "You know, _you_ were always the one who kept making all the sex jokes about them back when we were in Storybrooke."

"I was being _clever_ and _adorable!"_ Anna exclaims. "I never actually wanted to be _aware_ of every time they're...they're..."

"...Having sex?" Kristoff provides.

_"You_ need to stop talking," Anna snaps. She taps a finger to her chin thoughtfully. 

"We must find a way to keep them from carrying on like this, Kristoff," she muses in what she imagines to be a very mysterious way. "I cannot live in a castle that is constantly under siege from snow...orgasms. Snowgasms." She shivers, making a face. "They must be stopped."

Kristoff gives her one of those looks like he doesn't think what she's saying is that great of an idea. "Riiiight," he says. "And...how exactly are you going to stop your sister and Emma from...y'know?"

Anna pats his shoulder, looking off into the distance. "You just leave that to me, dear husband of mine," she murmurs. "Leave it to me..."

"Anna, you're doing that thing where you talk like an evil villain again," Kristoff tells her with a resigned sigh. 

"Sh-shhh...Leave it _alllll_ to me..."

*

Trolls are a common occurrence in Arendelle, and not just the rock trolls who are now Anna's extended family. There are also swamp trolls, mountain trolls, bridge trolls, tree trolls, and...well...flower trolls, but those are even more harmless than the rock trolls, they hardly even count.

Now, Anna loves her sister. _Loves_ her. So much. But also...there are noises now, which accompany the indoor snowstorms. Loud ones. And while Anna is a huge supporter of true love...enough is enough already.

So, one morning, she goes to the cave of a mountain troll, and pokes it with a stick.

Elsa and Emma are out in the woods having a picnic, (which, Anna thinks with a shudder, is actually probably just code for "they decided to have sex outside against a tree instead of inside against a wall"). Anna would never risk her sister's safety— she's not _evil_ — but she's pretty sure that if Elsa and Emma have to spend a large portion of the day fighting off an incensed mountain troll, they'll be too tired for any... _other_...activities. Which is kind of all she wants right now.

So she pokes the sleeping mountain troll in the face with a stick and takes off at a run for Emma and Elsa's general direction.

The troll follows her in a rage, knocking down trees in its haste. It's actually...quite a bit more _agile_ than Anna had thought, and is keeping...surprisingly good pace with her.

Suddenly sensing a backfire to this plan of hers, she decides now is a good time to start screaming for actual help, because the troll just _very_ nearly succeeded in grabbing her in its huge hammy fists, and it will most certainly gobble her up if it catches her.

Fortunately, she's gotten close enough to where Elsa and Emma are that they hear her scream, and run to her rescue. And Anna's pretty sure she glimpsed Emma zipping up her fly as she was running, but she's just grateful enough to see them that she's going to let this one slide.

In what is admittedly one of the coolest things Anna has ever seen, Emma and Elsa take one look at the mountain troll chasing her, and both raise their hands, letting loose a staggering combination of both their powers to send the troll flying several feet in the air before landing back on the ground in an unconscious heap.

Anna throws a rock at its head, just to make sure it _stays_ in an unconscious heap.

Feeling flush with excitement, she turns around with the intention of throwing herself gleefully into a celebratory group hug with Elsa and Emma, because beating the crap out of a mountain troll seems like a very good occasion for a celebratory group hug.

But when she turns around, her sister seems to be trying to wrap all her limbs around Emma at once, and Emma seems to be hell-bent on finding out just how far she can stick her tongue down Elsa's throat.

Anna scratches her nose awkwardly and shuffles off back to the castle.

*

Okay, so life-and-death situations are apparently an aphrodisiac, not a libido-killer. Well no one ever said this was going to be easy, Anna's just in the recon stage right now as far as what will stop this ongoing siege of snowgasms. She'll figure it out eventually.

After several hours of musing, it finally comes to her when one of the twins starts crying upstairs.

The _babies_ , she thinks with a gleeful grin. _No one_ has time for sexy shenanigans when they have to be looking after _babies—_ especially hers. All she has to do is get Elsa and Emma to babysit for her all day, and there will be nary a snowstorm in sight.

Anna fakes a sprained ankle the following morning, and Elsa— who, in spite of the screaming snowgasms, _is_ actually a good big sister— immediately insists she spend the day in one of the comfy chairs in the library with a large platter of chocolate while she and Emma look after the twins for her.

Anna rubs her hands together gleefully once she's left alone. _All_ according to plan. She's an evil genius. She will put an end to her sister's savage libido if it's the last thing she does.

_And_ she will do it whilst feasting on chocolate.

Around midday of course, she starts to get a little bored just hanging out in the library with nothing to do, and nothing more to eat, so she puts on her best imitation of a hobble and makes her way upstairs to where Emma and Elsa are putting the twins down for a nap.

It's kind of a sweet little scene, Anna can admit that— Elsa bent over the cribs tucking one of them in, Emma behind her, one arm around Elsa's waist, other hand helping tuck the other in. 

Anna watches from outside the room, heart actually feeling a little warm and fuzzy-ish— until _Emma_ ruins the _whole thing_ when she kisses Elsa's neck and says, “My guess is we have about twenty minutes till these little guys wake up. Wanna see how much trouble we can get into in that amount of time?“

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IS NOTHING SACRED?" Anna screeches, making them both jump in alarm. 

The babies wake up of course, and it takes almost an entire hour for Anna to stop their wailing. 

Meanwhile, Emma and Elsa have crept off somewhere, and there is _way_ too much of a chill coming from the hall for whatever they're doing to be anything even remotely innocent.

*

At least Anna isn't alone in her disgust. Aside from Kristoff, there's Regina, who pops in from time to time to visit the twins and pretend to say mean things to Emma.

On one occasion, Anna explains the awkwardness of the snowgasm situation, and her attempts to put a stop to it.

"First of all," Regina says, "I fully applaud your attempts to end Miss Swan's happiness, it reminds me of a younger, more ambitious me."

Anna glows from the compliment.

"Second of all, it will never work," Regina adds. "This is what happens when you combine true love and the sex drive of two idiotic adolescent rabbits. Short of killing them both— which, of course, I _fully_ support— there's no way to stop them. Just let it run its course. Eventually they'll have to ease up at some point."

"I've been thinking the same thing for _months_ ," Anna complains. "They've shown _no_ sign of slowing down."

"They will," Regina assures her. "I'm sure you and your donkey-loving husband were much the same in the beginning."

"That was _different_ ," Anna insists, not mentioning that Sven is a reindeer, not a donkey. " _I_ never buried the royal archive room in a foot of snow when I was with Kristoff."

Regina gives her a vaguely pitying look, but doesn't seem to fully grasp the gravity of the situation until she's about to leave and opens the door to the main hall only to get a face-full of snow.

"I have this great potion," Regina says, shutting the door and abruptly turning back to her, spitting snow out of her mouth. "Normally I don't recommend turning human beings into insects, but in this particular situation, I'm happy to send it over to you."

Tempting, but...Anna's wary. "That Rumplestiltskin man…he said all magic comes with a price."

She and Regina both cringe as something down the hall shatters to the floor and a long series of high-pitched moans and squeals that sound disturbingly like Elsa's echo through the halls.

"I think you're already paying that price, dear," Regina says, patting her hand sympathetically.

*

Ultimately, Anna decides against taking Regina up on the potion offer. It might be funny and satisfying at first to turn Elsa and Emma into insects...but then Anna thinks she would just get kind of depressed. Plus, Regina hinted that the antidote for the potion only worked about sixty percent of the time, so there was a good chance Anna might end up with an insect for a sister forever.

That would be awful, she thinks. She'd have to keep Elsa in a little jar filled with leaves, and probably keep Emma in a separate jar because she's pretty sure she read one time that insects eat their own mates. What a lonely life, Anna thinks. What a sad, lonely insect life they both would lead...is this truly where Anna's path of vengeance against the snowgasms has led her? Forever keeping her insect sister in a jar away from her one true love, feeding her leaves, watching her pace restlessly back and forth across a fallen twig...?

"Anna?" 

She snaps out of her thoughts and turns to find Elsa gliding into the library, sitting herself down on the couch beside her.

"You look like you just found out we're all out of sandwiches, what's the matter?" Elsa asks.

"I was just picturing how I would take care of you if you were an insect," Anna tells her morosely.

"Ah," says Elsa, nodding slowly with some concern. "Well, I did ask."

"Elsa, I'm a terrible sister," Anna confesses.

_"What?"_ Elsa laughs in surprise.

"I am, I've been on a path of darkness," Anna insists. "First I attacked you with mountain trolls, and then I attacked you with babies...and now you're an insect..."

"...Anna, I'm not an insect..."

"But you could have been!" Anna exclaims. "Don't you see? Don't you see what I've become?"

Elsa purses her lips, brow creased with intense concern. Then—

"Anna, does this have anything to do with the note Regina left for me?" she asks.

"What note?"

Elsa holds up a small scrap of paper and hands it over to Anna whose eyes scan quickly over what's written:

_Cool it with the indoor snowstorms, Blondie, you're turning Raggedy Ann into a nervous wreck. ~R_

"I found that tacked to my door yesterday," Elsa says. "Tacked to my door with a knife, but then again, Regina has never been all that good with subtlety."

Anna looks up at her sister nervously. This is uncomfortable. Very very uncomfortable. 

She's grateful when Elsa speaks first.

"I'm sorry," Elsa tells her, "that Emma and I have been so..."

"...Gross?" Anna fills in.

_"Inseparable,"_ Elsa corrects her with a look, much more diplomatically. She fidgets. "I've just been so happy to have her here, I guess I didn't realize my... _powers_...were so..."

"...Disgusting?" Anna suggests.

_"Out of hand,"_ Elsa enunciates, giving her another pointed look. The corner of her mouth twitches a little bit though, making Anna realize her sister is both humiliated, but also sort of trying not to laugh.

Anna scoots over closer to her.

"Listen, Elsa, I'm really happy for you and Emma," she says truthfully. "Your happiness means the world to me and I don't want that to change. It's just...I wouldn't mind it if one of these days I could actually go to the kitchen for a snack without finding that you and Emma have iced over the entire hallway because you decided to mess around in the dining room. I mean, I almost broke my neck the other day slipping on some ice outside the library."

Elsa chews on her lip, looking more appropriately embarrassed. 

"And we've had three of the cleaning staff have to take off work this week because they got frostbite," Anna adds. "Elsa, it's the middle of summer. No one should have frostbite right now."

"You're right," Elsa murmurs, blushing a little bit. She presses her lips together thoughtfully. "How about this," she suggests. "This place is more than big enough— what if Emma and I move into the chambers on the north wing of the castle, farthest from you. And from now on, we'll try to keep our...ourselves...to _just_ our chambers, nowhere else."

Anna is pretty sure she hears Elsa add "At least when you're around" under her breath after that last part, but she's going to pretend that didn't happen.

"Deal," she agrees, because that sounds fair enough, and doesn't involve turning anyone into an insect.

But then, just because she's stupidly curious and can't help it, she asks, "So...has _every_ one of those snowstorms been because of...y'know? Because I mean…fourteen in one day...that seems kind of...excessive...doesn't it...?"

"Oh— well, Emma's really..." Elsa mumbles blushingly, "I mean she's _really..."_

She trails off, biting her lower lip with a kind of dazed, far away look and Anna claps her hands over her ears in horror.

"Never mind, I take it back!" Anna shouts. "Forget I asked! Not another word!"

Elsa laughs, reaching over to tug an end of one of Anna's braids playfully before she flounces out of the library.

Given the _very_ not-innocent look on Elsa's face just now as she was describing how " _really"_ Emma was, Anna's going to go ahead and make absolutely sure the two of them move into the northern chambers _tonight_.


	2. Power Outage (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is actually a 2-part one-shot? Does that make it a two-shot? In a collection of one-shots? ...I don't do math...whatever, these next two "chapters" are sort of connected so I'm uploading them at the same time and calling them a two-shot-within-a-one-shot-collection. Two for one! I guess. Anyway...

_**Chapter 2:** In which the Savior is working very hard to save the town. Sort of._

* * *

 

Emma lied.

Well like, she didn’t _lie_ lie— there really is some shit going down in Storybrooke, there really is a magic outage going on, where magic just straight up doesn’t work at fucking _all._ Like, that’s all true. And it’s causing serious panic. Everywhere. Even Gold and Regina look rattled, and they almost _never_ do.

So all that wasn’t a lie.

All she _really_ lied about was the lack of shirts available.

…That really doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that all magic has been extinguished in Storybrooke. But it _does_ kind of have to do with how Emma is insisting she and Elsa spend their time while they’re here.

“It’s important you learn to defend yourself,” she tells Elsa, putting her hands on the younger woman’s hips and angling them a little better towards the punching bag. “Sometimes magic won’t be available to you, like now. Sometimes it’s not going to be enough. Sometimes, you just gotta punch things.”

“…And I have to punch these things…half-naked,” Elsa says doubtfully.

Emma discreetly looks down at the sports-bra-clad Queen of Arendelle, and the shortest fucking short-shorts she could find on short notice.

“…I have to be able to see how your muscles are working,” she answers as professionally as she can. “It helps me…look at your…form— like if you’re keeping good form. Elsa. This is important. Stop questioning me.”

“I thought you said it was because those washing machine things aren’t working.”

“They aren’t! They don’t uhm…they don’t work without magic. So there’s no clean shirts. Or dresses. And _also_ I can look at your form— _critique_ your form— this way. It’s all…all of this is important.”

Elsa probably has some kind of _look_ on her face, but Emma can’t see that from the way she’s positioned behind her with her hands on that comfy place on her hips. Very comfy. She gives a small squeeze, making Elsa squeak.

Elsa is almost ridiculously ticklish.

“So what you’re going to do,” Emma says, as if that didn’t just happen, “Is jab, jab, cross…then left upper cut, right hook, two right roundhouses, followed up by a reverse hook kick.”

There’s a small silence.

“You’re going to have to repeat that at least five more times,” Elsa tells her.

“What, you didn’t memorize that?” Emma asks disbelievingly. “How are we ever going to turn you into the next Bruce Lee?” The two of them and Henry have recently been on a Bruce Lee movie kick and Elsa, after some initial reservations, has found them “quite enjoyable.”

Elsa turns around to face her, giggling and pushing on her shoulders with her boxing-gloved-hands. “Show me,” she laugh-whines. “Show me your back round reverse house hook upper cuts. I’m a visual learner.”

“Who taught you that phrase?” Emma asks, pushing her back playfully.

“Henry,” Elsa answers matter-of-factly. “He says it any time he doesn’t understand one of his lessons. To get out of doing his homework.”

“You saying you’re trying to get out of this?”

“No…I just want to critique _your_ form.”

Fucking cheeky as hell.

“Alright,” Emma says, actually pretty glad for an excuse to show off. “Here, step back a little.”

Elsa obeys, still looking pretty amused, and Emma sets herself up to wipe that little smirk right off her face. She doesn’t have gloves on, but that’s alright. She’s gotten into scrapes with people way tougher than this punching bag.

She gets into her stance, loosening her shoulders, getting her hands up by her face. Then she whips her front hand out twice in quick succession, then pivots slightly, slamming her other fist as hard as she can into the punching bag, following that up with the left upper cut and the right hook. She twists her body, snapping her right leg out twice to strike the bag with the top of her foot, then shuffles back a step, spinning around 360 degrees to deliver the reverse hook kick with the heel of her foot. The punching bag swings satisfyingly back and forth on its hinge.

Emma angles her head to look cockily at Elsa, then almost laughs from the way Elsa is staring wide-eyed at her, biting down on her lower lip.

“Impressed?” Emma asks her.

“…No,” Elsa says unconvincingly. “I just…think you should probably show me that again.”

Emma grins. “I’ll do you one better,” she says. “Here, face the bag again.”

She circles around behind Elsa, sliding her hands back to their comfy place on her hips and angling them back properly.

Barely containing a smirk, she presses her mouth against the younger woman’s ear. “You’re tense,” she says, and Elsa immediately tenses even more from the feeling of her breath in her ear. “Try to loosen up.”

“I _am_ trying, you’re distracting me.”

“So? There’s going to be plenty of distractions in a real fight.”

“Distractions like what you’re doing right now?” Elsa asks doubtfully.

Emma slides her hands all the way around Elsa’s waist and bites her ear gently. “Maybe,” she says. “You’re pretty irresistible.”

“Emma…” Elsa whines, and Emma can’t be sure whether it’s a protest or a plea for more.

She decides to treat it like a protest. Because Elsa’s usually such a tease and this is a good opportunity to return the favor.

“You’re right, we should focus on this, shouldn’t we,” Emma says, slapping her on the ass. Elsa grumbles her disappointment and Emma laughs.

She reaches around again, this time taking hold of Elsa’s arms and lifting them so they’re up to Elsa’s cheeks.

“Hands up by your face,” she instructs gently. Elsa follows orders, and Emma sees her curl her gloved hands into fists.

“Good,” she says. She runs her hands up Elsa’s arms to her shoulders, pushing her thumbs slightly into her shoulder blades.

“You want these loose,” she says.

“I _am_ loose.”

“Elsa, you’re about as loose as a fucking brick wall.” She hears Elsa make an _extremely_ indignant sound. “A really sexy brick wall,” Emma corrects herself, “but still a fucking wall. Drop your shoulders. Relax.”

“I’m not going to be relaxed if I have to fight someone, I’m going to be very very tense,” Elsa tells her. “Besides, I’m the Queen. I’m not allowed to relax.”

“I thought you looked pretty relaxed last night after w—”

“Well I don’t think I’m going to do _that_ with whoever I’m fighting,” Elsa interrupts quickly, as if just hearing the words will set her off in some way.

“I certainly hope not,” Emma says, nuzzling her neck. “But just…try to relax for me. You’re going to hurt your shoulder if you’re this stiff.”

Elsa sighs, and Emma feels the younger woman’s shoulders drop ever so slightly. She still feels tense, but Emma supposes she’ll have to work with it.

“Alright, so first,” she says, sliding her hand back down to Elsa’s left wrist, “is a jab. And what you want to do,” she takes Elsa’s lower arm and extends it forward so that her fist touches the bag. “Just like that. Then pull it back in by your face, and do it again. Pretty straight-forward.”

She’s pretty glad Elsa doesn’t have much exposure to TV or movies so she doesn’t know that the whole standing-behind-someone-and-instructing-them thing is like the cheesiest move in the book.

“Now for the cross,” she goes on, taking Elsa’s other hand, and extending it to the bag. “You want to pivot on your back foot a little, and angle your hips—“ her hands go back to the comfy place, and she squeezes just a little. 

Elsa’s whole body tenses again and she squirms around in Emma’s arms pushing against her with her gloved hands.

“Don’t _do_ that,” she giggles.

“Do what?” Emma asks innocently.

“You _know_ what, you’re supposed to be teaching me how to fend off punching bags.”

“Yeah, well there _are_ a lot of those walking around looking for a fight, but also, it’s really hard not to try and make you make that squeaky sound you do.”

Elsa fakes a small swipe at her and Emma raises her hand up so Elsa’s gloved fist hits her palm.

“Whoa now, pretty tough there, Your Majesty,” Emma says. “Once we get you trained up a little, those punching bags aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em.” She pauses, then grins. “Ha. Get it? They won’t know what _hit_ them.”

Elsa fake-swipes at her again, lips pressed together against a smile.

“Because you’ll be _hitting_ them,” Emma goes on. “It’s a pun.”

“Glad to see you’ve mastered the _lowest_ form of humor,” Elsa laughs, swiping again. Emma grins at her, putting up both palms for Elsa to hit, allowing her to back her toward the wall with each swipe.

“You are just absolutely…the _least_ intimidating thing I’ve ever seen,” Emma observes with a grin as her back finally hits the wall.

Elsa pouts. “I’m intimidating,” she whines with another swipe.

“When have you _ever_ been intimidating?”

“I buried my entire kingdom in an endless winter one time.” Another swipe.

“Oh yeah. Alright, I’ll give you that one.”

“I’m really scary,” Elsa asserts, taking one more swipe before pressing up against Emma.

“Is this your new method, you’re gonna seduce all those punching bags to death?” Emma asks.

“Yes,” Elsa says absently, clearly not really listening to Emma anymore as she presses in to kiss her.

Emma…really likes the way Elsa kisses. It’s warm and soft and insistent in a sweet way— she _really_ knows how to use her tongue, not in some weird, over-enthusiastic way like _some_ exes of hers she could mention— just soft, gentle tastes, like she’s just enjoying what she’s doing, no plan, no ulterior motive…

…Well _that’s_ a lie, Emma thinks as Elsa’s gloved hand begins to wander down to Emma’s ass. There’s all _kinds_ of ulterior motives the young queen has in mind— she’s just a little more subtle about it than Emma is. Sort of.

She tries _very_ hard to stifle a moan as Elsa slides down to her knees and starts pressing kisses to her center on the outside of her shorts, gloved hands sliding up her thighs. Emma has no idea _why_ it’s so fucking sexy that she’s kissing _outside_ the shorts, but it is— like, it’s just so close to where it _should_ be…it’s Elsa-teasing at its finest.

Better than Elsa- _teasing_ though, is when Elsa finally pulls Emma’s shorts down— first with her teeth, then with her hands— followed quickly by her underwear, and presses that unbelievably warm mouth to her cunt, soft tongue flicking out to lick a hot stripe from entrance to clit. Emma’s head falls back against the wall, which actually kind of hurts a little, but she’d happily take a _world_ of pain right now if it means Elsa’s mouth stays right where it is. Elsa’s mouth…Elsa’s mouth is the best thing that has ever happened in the entire fucking universe, holy fucking shit…

“Oh, what the _hell!”_ comes a very angry, very _disturbed_ voice from the doorway.

“Shit— Regina!” Emma yelps, fumbling to pull up her shorts while Elsa scrambles to get to her feet, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm.

“Well it’s good to see the _Savior_ is hard at work trying to solve our magic problem!” Regina snaps, one hand flying up to cover her eyes in horror. “The entire town has only been left _completely_ magic-less, it’s not a big _deal_ or anything, not when you’ve obviously found something much more _dire_ to take care of!”

“Well maybe make some noise or something next time you sneak up on me! Jesus!” Emma shouts back.

“Oh well _forgive_ me for thinking you and Blondie could go for more than 10 minutes without one of you getting in the other’s pants, particularly when we have a _life-threatening_ problem on our hands!” Regina roars back.

“My name isn’t _Blondie_ it’s _Elsa!”_ Elsa pipes up angrily. “And should, quite frankly, be _Your Majesty_ to you.”

That was the wrong thing to say. The very very _wrong_ thing. Regina takes her hand away from covering her eyes, face hardening into its fucking _regal_ , fucking _terrifying_ look and she stocks forward toward Elsa. “You’re in _my_ town, dear, there is only one _Your Majesty_ here, and it’s me. If I have to remind you of that by setting you on fire—“

“Regina, chill, you can’t set anyone on fire right now, you have no magic,” Emma points out hastily, still pulling Elsa behind herself just in case. “And Elsa stop…doing whatever you’re doing with those gloves, you can’t punch Regina, you’ll probably just end up pulling a muscle.”

Both queens glare at one another over Emma’s shoulder for a moment before Regina finally straightens, tugging with some finality at the jacket of her pantsuit.

“At least try to _act_ like you’re working to save the town,” she says. “People are beside themselves— even your father’s endless hope speeches aren’t working on them anymore. So _try.”_ She gives Elsa a once-over. “And tell Blondie to put a proper shirt on.”

She turns on her heel and exits the gym and Elsa starts to make a lunge for where she just was. Emma catches her easily at the waist and pushes her gently back against the wall.

“Easy, Els, you’re having a hard enough time beating up _punching bags—_ what exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish by going after Regina?”

“I was _defending_ you,” Elsa says.

“You were definitely doing _something_ that involved flailing your arms. Listen, I’m thinking maybe punching things isn’t your strong suit. Maybe we should just get you a can of mace or something.”

“A can of what?”

“Mace. Uhm…” She screws up her face, trying to figure out how to explain it. “It’s just this stuff that…like, if you’re being attacked, you spray it in their face and it’s super painful for them and I think it blinds them temporarily? Or something? And then you run away.”

Elsa frowns. “I don’t want to run away,” she says. “I want to be like you.”

Emma tilts her head at her, surprised. She seems serious all of a sudden. “What do you mean you want to be like me?” Emma asks.

Elsa shrugs one shoulder up, looking self-conscious. “I just…I don’t know, I want to be confident like you,” she says. “And strong. And fearless. I’m not really any of those things.”

Emma’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you kidding me?” she asks. “I’ve seen you doing all your…queen…things…like, all your dealing with diplomats, addressing the troops, settling disputes…you never even break a sweat.”

“I’m an ice queen, Emma, I _never_ break a sweat. Except when I’m around you.”

“You know what I mean,” Emma says, trying not to think _too_ hard about the image of Elsa’s sweat-slicked body under her. “You’re just as confident as I am— more, I think. There’s no way in hell I could do half the things you do.”

“Okay, but I’m— like you said, I’m not much good in a fight,” Elsa says. “Not without my powers. Without them, I don’t really have anything to fall back on. Not like you, you’ve always survived without any extra power.”

“I’m pretty scrappy, it’s true,” Emma admits.

Elsa smiles.

“And yeah, I probably wouldn’t put you at the top of my list for most likely to win an arm-wrestling competition, but part of me is pretty sure you’re smart enough that you could probably trick someone into beating _themselves_ in an arm-wrestling competition.”

Finally a laugh.

“And look, if you really want to be ‘good in a fight’ of course I’ll keep helping you,” Emma goes on, feeling a little guilty. “I really didn’t mean to make it sound like I was giving up on you. I’m happy to spend all day every day training you if that’s really what you want. I mean, I’m even picturing this really great scenario where I’m teaching you how to wrestle, and you get the best of me and pin me down and then we just end up making out for a half hour or so.”

Elsa laughs again, slapping her arm playfully.

“I thought you were supposed to be trying to save your town,” she says. “Making out while we wrestle doesn’t sound very conducive to that.”

“…says the girl who, five minutes ago, was going down on me when she was supposed to be taking out punching bags.”

Elsa’s cheeks go a little red, but she doesn’t honestly look _that_ embarrassed. 

“That was my… _downpayment_ …for the self-defense lessons,” Elsa says, smiling a little and crowding in closer to her. “Hence the ‘going _down_ on you’ part.”

“Wow. _Now_ who’s making the puns?” Emma asks her, hands going once again for the comfy spot on her hips. “What did you call it— the _lowest_ form of humor?”

“Well not when _I_ say it,” Elsa smiles against her lips before kissing her. Emma begins to kiss back when an insistent _buzz_ from her back pocket startles her and she takes out her phone to find she has a new text.

“Fucking Regina,” she sighs, angling the phone so Elsa can see the text as well:

_Leroy has suggested that starting a riot in the streets might somehow be helpful to the situation, and it seems almost every lunatic in town save for your parents thinks that’s a good idea._

A beat.

_Seeing as you are no longer acting as a Savior should, would you at least please send Blondie over in your place to fight off the rabble? She seemed to be taking very well to your lessons earlier, I’m assuming she’s a master martial artist by now and we could use her help._

Emma rolls her eyes at Elsa, about to put the phone back in her pocket, when it buzzes again.

_The rabble are now fighting amongst themselves, looking for someone to blame for the situation._

It buzzes again.

_Granny has just elbowed Dr. Hopper in the eye._

Another buzz.

_These people are morons. All joking aside, please come save them before they all kill each other._

Emma glances at Elsa. 

“What do you think, tough stuff? Wanna come be a Savior with me? Hopefully we won’t have to punch anybody, but I could use someone with your smarts and your diplomacy to calm everyone down.”

Elsa presses her lips together. “As long as you show me how to do that reverse hook cutting cross kick later, I suppose I could lend a hand,” she says.

(They’re able to calm everyone down eventually).

(Emma doesn’t even have to punch anyone, because Elsa’s just that good with words and crowds. She does swat Leroy in the head for being a dumbass though).

(They still have no clue as to why there still isn’t any magic in Storybrooke, but Emma isn’t all that troubled by it when Elsa gets extra snuggly that night).

(She becomes a little more troubled by it though when she realizes Elsa has goose bumps and is shivering slightly). 


	3. Power Outage (Part Two)

_**Chapter 3:** _ _In which there’s still no magic in Storybrooke and the cold bothers Elsa very much_

* * *

 

After three days, there still isn’t any magic in Storybrooke. Which means _Elsa_ doesn’t have magic. Which means that when the temperature drops, for the first time in her entire life she’s cold.

“D-do you…f-f-f-f-feel like this…all-ll the _t-t-t-time?”_ she asks Emma, teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Emma is laughing at her, which Elsa doesn’t think is very polite.

“It’s like thirty degrees, Els, that’s not even _that_ cold for December,” the older woman tells her with a grin. “Look, I’m just in a jacket and I’m fine.”

Elsa just scowls and burrows further into the giant, puffy winter parka she’s wearing and adjusts her fluffy earmuffs as they head off to the gym to train. Emma has promised her that working up a sweat will help her warm up. (She also suggested sex as a way of working up a sweat, but Elsa doesn’t want to take her puffy coat off, not even for a second).

“G-good for y-y-you,” she snaps. “I h- _hate_ this f-f-feeling, it’s _awful.”_

Emma laughs like she can’t even believe what she’s seeing. “I never thought I’d see the day,” she says. “Elsa the Ice Queen, shivering in the cold like the rest of us mortals.”

“I w-would th-th-throw something a-at you, but I d-don’t think I can f-f-f-eel m-my arms.”

“Wow, you’ve _really_ never been cold before, have you,” Emma says, still _laughing_. Elsa might be _dying_ and Emma is _laughing._

“I wish Anna could see you now,” the older woman goes on. “She’d lose all respect for you in a second. No one in your kingdom would fear you. At all.” She pokes playfully at the puffy winter parka and cracks up again. “You’re so fucking _cute_ like this!”

Elsa takes this as a particularly bad sign— Emma very rarely uses words like _cute_ , so to hear it applied to _her_ …she must look completely ridiculous. This is humiliating.

“If I ev-v-ver f-find out who g-g-got r-rid of the m-magic here, I’ll p-punch them r-r-right in the f-face,” she informs Emma. _“Th-then_ we’ll s-s-see how _‘f-fucking cute’_ I am.”

Emma laughs at her. _Again._ _Again_ with the laughing while Elsa slowly freezes to death.

“It’s not that bad,” the older woman says. “See? Now you get to feel how I felt the first time I met you when we were trapped in that ice cave. Shared experiences. Brings us closer together.” She puts on a sappy face and puts her arm around Elsa’s shoulders.

Elsa wants to say something very very sharp and clever, but Emma’s arm around her is warm so she just snuggles into it more.

“You’ll be alright,” Emma says again. “Once we get some blood pumping through your veins you’ll warm right up.”

They pass in front of Granny’s and Elsa turns her head as she sees a group of teenagers standing outside, bare hands wrapped around steaming styrofoam cups. One of them takes a drink of whatever is in his cup and then rears his head back in pain and yelps, “Shit! That’s fucking _hot!”_

“That,” Elsa says to Emma, pointing. “I w-want _th-that.”_

Emma gives her a look. “You’ll probably end up burning your tongue without your magic,” she warns.

“I w-w-want _that,”_ Elsa insists, continuing to point, because she thinks her muscles have frozen in that position.

“And what about training?” Emma asks. “I thought you wanted to be all rough-and-tumble like me.”

“W-w-want _that,”_ Elsa says again, flexing and unflexing her fingers as if she’d somehow be able to grab the styrofoam cup from that boy all the way from back here.

Emma snorts and finally helps Elsa put her arm down by her side. “Alright,” she says, “but don’t come crying to me if you burn yourself.” 

Elsa grumbles because her brain isn’t moving quickly enough to come up with any good retorts, and allows herself to be steered over toward Granny’s.

Emma orders them two hot cocoas while Elsa goes to stand directly in front of the heater, contemplating sitting on it for extra warmth. It’s one of what Mary-Margaret once told her are “electric radiators.” Apparently, according to Mary-Margaret, these things are “disasters-waiting-to-happen” that cause clothes and curtains to catch on fire if they’re too hot. Not to mention that they’re ugly.

Elsa supposes that means she shouldn’t sit on it, not at the risk of catching fire. Part of her thinks catching on fire might not be a horrible idea— anything to escape this terrible knife-sharp, pin-pricking feeling making her shiver all the way down to her bones. She hadn’t realized what winter _meant_ for people who weren’t like her. She knew, in theory, that it was painful for them, and that it could even be deadly— but she’d never experienced it herself, didn’t really _know_. 

Feeling it finally for herself makes her feel suddenly guilty, and…not all that great about herself, really. This feeling, this _cold_ , is what she does to people, all the time.  She frowns, feeling a small droplet of her old fear of herself take hold of her, something she hasn’t felt in a long time.

“What’s with the sad face?” Emma asks, coming over from the counter and handing her one of the cups of hot cocoa.

Elsa presses her lips together, wrapping both hands around the cup to warm them. “I don’t…I really thought I’d gotten over all my issues with my powers,” she says softly. “For a long time now, I’ve actually felt good about them. I even have fun with them most times. But I’ve never really felt what it feels like…Emma, I don’t like this feeling at all. I make people feel like this all the time.”

Emma leans back against the wall, looking at her carefully. “Yeah,” she says. “You do. And it…I mean it takes a little getting used to, I’ll be the first to admit that. But it actually starts to be kind of magical— not in the technical sense, you know, I don’t mean _magic_ magic. Just…I don’t know…” She breaks off, looking through the window outside. Then she smiles, reaching her hand out to take Elsa’s. “Here, c’mere, I’ll show you.”

And Elsa doesn’t want to go back outside, in the cold, in this miserable feeling she has created for so long for other people that has suddenly turned around on her, dragging her down too.

But she’s not about to say _no_ to Emma— not when she’s looking at her like this, with one of those quietly excited smiles she does, the one that’s in no way a grin, but still reaches all the way up to her eyes, making them shine— so Elsa frees one of the hands she has wrapped around her hot cocoa, and takes hold of Emma’s hand, allowing the older woman to pull her outside.

They stop on the sidewalk outside Granny’s, Elsa gripping her hot cocoa as hard as she can as a new wave of sharp, painful air hits her. At least her teeth aren’t chattering— the cocoa helps a little, she supposes, warming her from the inside. 

Emma lets go of her hand and circles around behind her, slipping her arms around her waist and pressing her cheek against Elsa’s.

“This is very difficult, getting my arms around you— you’re basically the Michelin Man in this get-up,” Emma murmurs.

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like you’re implying that I’m fat.”

Emma laughs and tightens her hold around Elsa’s waist. Elsa can almost feel it through the parka. Almost.

“Elsa, why don’t you look up and tell me what you see,” the older woman says.

Elsa tilts her head up to look up at the over-cast, near-dark evening sky. “It’s snowing,” she says a little blandly, because she knows that’s what Emma is trying to get her to say.

“It’s snowing,” Emma agrees. “First snow of the season.”

“That’s…nice,” she ventures, not sure what she’s supposed to be getting from that statement.

“You know what people do the first snow of the season?” Emma asks.

“Run and hide from this terrible feeling, hopefully.”

“No, they get excited and go out in it, because they realize that for months now, they’ve been missing it, and they want to be out there with it when it happens,” Emma tells her. “See that?”

Elsa looks where she’s pointing and sees that yes, in fact, there are people stepping outside, and those already walking on the streets— all of them are holding out their hands like they’re trying to catch the snowflakes, even though they should know by now that what with their ridiculously warm skin, those flakes will melt right away. Elsa could have told them all that, but they seem to be determined anyway, smiling and laughing at each other, opening their mouths wide to catch the flakes on their tongues. She wonders if she has that now without her magic— warm skin that can melt a snowflake instead of just feeling it slip off her unharmed, or dissolving back into her, once again becoming part of her, part of that endless, restless storm of power inside her.

The people around her aren’t connecting to any kind of power. They’re enjoying their pointless attempts at catching the snow. It’s nothing Elsa hasn’t seen before back in Arendelle, but at least there she could control it— stop it if it hurt someone, create more if it was enjoyed by someone.  Now she’s powerless to do anything but watch. And she’s still _shivering_ , she’s still _cold._ Warm skin or no, she continues to be cold. It doesn’t make sense.

“I know this probably all feels weird to you,” Emma says, resting her chin on Elsa’s shoulder. “But look at all them. You’ve seen it before, both here and in Arendelle— you _know_ that people love this feeling, that it feels magical, even if it’s not. So right now, I want you to feel what it feels like to be them. Your magic is so part of you, I think you forget how to really feel it. So take a step back from it, and just feel what it’s like to be the rest of us. Okay?”

Elsa sighs, her breath coming out in a white frozen puff of air. She leans her head placatingly back against Emma, but extends her hand out obediently, trying to catch a snowflake in the palm of her hand like the people on the streets are.

“It just melts right away,” she tells Emma as the snowflake in her hand does just that. It doesn’t become a part of her the way it should, it just…melts. Disappears. “What’s the point?”

Emma sighs, her breath warm on Elsa’s cheek. “There is no _point,”_ she says. “Come on, you have fun with your powers, you’ve said it yourself. They make you happy, because they’re you, they’re like an extension of you. And you like that, you’ve told me, you really _enjoy_ using them. So just…give it a shot trying to enjoy them from the flip-side. You already know you like creating the snow, so just try to enjoy receiving it for once.”

Elsa exhales deeply, snuggling back into the warmth of Emma’s hold, hands still wrapped around her hot cocoa. She tilts her head back up at the sky and tries to see what Emma sees.

She doesn’t at first. Just dark, frigid air tightening around her.

But slowly, her breath—almost unfamiliar to her now in its suddenly visible puff of translucent white—becomes more relaxed, deeper. She watches the dark night sky above her burst gently into life as heavy, individual flakes of snow float down at her, landing on her cheeks, her lips, her eyelashes. She smiles as they do this— they’re playful, snowflakes always are, but this time they’re free of her hold on them. It’s almost like they’re coming to her on their own, quick kisses of greeting, friendly feather-light touches of fondness. She smiles wider, thinking—somewhat foolishly, she knows—that they seem like they _like_ her, like they want her to come play with them. All on their own. With no prompting from her.

She sighs comfortably, letting go of the hot cocoa with one hand so she can rest her arm over Emma’s own that are wrapped around her.

“I like them,” she tells her softly.

She feels Emma smile. “I hoped you would. See? Magic without magic.” She kisses Elsa’s hair. “First snow was always my favorite time of year when I was a kid,” she says.

Elsa laughs. “Now you’re just over-selling it,” she says, grinning as a snowflake lands on the tip of her nose.

Emma laughs to. “Okay, a little,” she admits. “Really though. There’s something about the first snow.”

Elsa watches the snowflakes twirl down to her and around her, then closes her eyes contentedly, feeling them continue to land softly on her exposed skin.

“I like feeling it the way you do,” Elsa says. “It doesn’t even feel as cold as it did before.”

“Well you _are_ wearing a big puffy winter parka,” Emma points out. “Those are really only supposed to be used way up in the arctic with the polar bears.”

Elsa smiles, separating from her hold slowly, and turning around to face her. “Thank you for this, Emma,” she says sincerely. “Sometimes I just…I need to be reminded that I’m okay.”

“Of course you’re okay. And I’m gonna make sure I’m always around to remind you,” Emma tells her, nudging her elbow with a smile. “So now you’re stuck with me. And just to _really_ prove to you that you’re going to be okay, we’re going to have a good old fashioned snowball fight tomorrow when there’s enough snow on the ground. And you’re going to have to make every snowball all by yourself, by hand. And you’ll still probably beat me because that’s how okay you are.”

Elsa smiles, stepping in and kissing her softly.

(They have the afore-mentioned snowball fight the following morning as promised. Emma is actually quite a bit more adept at it than she’d let on and for a moment it looks like she’s gotten the best of Elsa).

(Which is the moment magic returns to Storybrooke).

(Apparently one of the dwarves is to blame for the outage, having decided to snoop around Mr. Gold’s shop when he wasn’t looking).

(Unfortunately for Emma, the moment she is about to use her last snowball to pummel Elsa, Elsa gets all her powers back).

(Needless to say, Emma ends the morning drenched head to toe with snow. Elsa laughs at her and kisses her again).


	4. Coup Tada

**Chapter 4:** _In which there is the epic romance of the unruly rapscallion and the ruthless regent_

* * *

 

Inevitably, Elsa breaks out the manacles one afternoon and dangles them in her hand for Emma to see.

It's a little unnerving, actually— Emma's sitting on the edge of the bed, about to put her shoes on to go out for a ride with Anna, and for a second, looking at Elsa and the manacles, she isn't sure if she's actually about to be chained up and thrown in the dungeon. She'd skipped out on last night's royal ball, claiming illness, only to have Elsa discover her, Anna, and Kristoff hanging out in the library doing drunken imitations of the visiting lords and ladies— Emma isn't sure if Elsa is deciding to punish her for that slip-up now by having her hand-cuffed and tossed into the dungeons. The young queen had been pretty furious after all, in that scary, cold, silent way she has.

Instead, Elsa smiles at her impishly with her lower lip between her teeth, and flounces forward to straddle Emma's lap, shifting a little to get comfortable.

Emma looks up at her a little warily and slides her hands up to steady Elsa at the hips. Elsa had been really  _really_  angry with her for the stunt she'd pulled with Anna and Kristoff. She doesn't quite trust that this is just Elsa being affectionate, she sort of thinks this is about to turn into something else.

Deciding to just go ahead and confront this head-on, Emma puts on her most charming and endearing face and asks, "Am I in trouble?"

Elsa's still smiling mischievously and she nods, beginning to push Emma's arms behind her back. Emma gets a face-full of her cleavage as the younger woman leans forward to fasten the manacles around her wrists. Knowing this is probably about to turn into something painful, Emma angles her head to kiss Elsa's chest just above the collar of her dress, hoping to soften her up a little bit so she'll go easy on her. The younger woman laughs lowly, chest vibrating against Emma's lips before she tugs on the manacles to make sure they're tight, and straightens back up.

Emma flinches at the tug. "Those are really cold," she tells Elsa.

Elsa smiles at her, looking  _much_  too happy. "Good," she says, looping her arms around Emma's neck and shifting again. "I hope they hurt too."

"They're a far cry from comfy, that's for sure," Emma tells her.

Elsa's smile slants up at the corner a little, making it look just as gleeful, but much more dangerous, and Emma shivers a little as the younger woman's fingers start to twist into her hair.

"I don't remember saying you could speak. Knave," she says softly.

" _Knave?"_  Emma echoes, face splitting into a grin. "Is  _that_  what we're doing right now?" She cranes her neck up to ghost her lips against Elsa's. "Am I your prisoner?"

Elsa hums and pulls just out of reach. "You're just some lowlife miscreant— hardly a prisoner worth my time," she says carelessly.

"Then why exactly are you sitting on me, Your Majesty? If I'm that much of a lowlife?"

"You tried to escape," Elsa tells her, combing her fingers slowly through Emma's hair. "And we can't have that."

"Definitely can't have that," Emma agrees. "And…what's my crime? If I can be so bold as to ask."

"If you  _may_  be so bold as to ask," Elsa corrects her.

"If I  _may_  be so bold as to ask," Emma repeats obediently.

"One can only guess," Elsa tells her, eyes falling to her lips, "as you were found sneaking into your Queen's chambers at night— for all anyone knows, trying to make an attempt on my life…"

"Pretty sure this lowlife had other reasons for sneaking into your chambers."

Elsa gasps in shock. "I should have you flogged for that," she says. "That kind of insolence will not be tolerated in my court."

"Who said anything about insolence?" Emma asks, cocking an eyebrow. "Maybe I  _was_  trying to make an attempt on your life— at first. Maybe I charmed my way into a job here in the palace, with every intention of getting myself closer and closer to you so that, at a moment's notice, I could perform a coup tada."

"A coup d'etat," Elsa corrects her quietly.

"A coup d'etat!" Emma corrects herself loudly. "Maybe I had positioned myself perfectly, so that soon, I was a trusted member of the staff, suddenly responsible for bringing you breakfast one morning. Maybe I went into your room with every intention of carrying out my orders to kill you.

"But then," she continues, creasing her brow, "I walk in, and you're just stepping out of the bath, all glisteny and wet, and I get a load of your great tits."

"Emma."

"I mean your…full…flowery…bosomy…bosoms…"

"You're really bad at this, Emma."

"Sh-shh, I'm getting to the good part. So I see you getting out of the bath and you're this sexy little minx— by which of course I mean, you're this elegant, sophisticated, highly-respected monarch. With a great ass."

"Emma," Elsa laughs, unable to contain it this time.

"…And your ass is so majestic, that all of a sudden, this lowlife miscreant forgets everything she's supposed to do, every vow she's made to put an end to the monarchy," Emma goes on. "In a panic, I drop all the breakfast stuff I was supposed to bring you, and I run through the halls, and out to the…hill…outside somewhere, and I look over across the lake."

"The fjord."

"The fjord. I look out across the fjord, trying to get my shit together. I'm supposed to  _kill_  you, that's my  _mission_ , the whole reason I'm  _here_. But your perfect ass haunts me…"

Elsa bites her lip against a laugh.

"…It does, it haunts me. And I fall in love with it. Not with  _you_ , just with  _it._  I fall in love with your ass."

Elsa slaps her shoulder playfully, with another barely reproachful,  _"Emma!"_

"Alright I guess I fall in love with  _you_  a little bit too," Emma gives in. "But your ass is what brought me to this place of love, so it's a very important component here.

"So over the next several weeks, I try over and over again to complete my mission to take you down because of your evil tyrannical ways."

"I'm a tyrant?" Elsa asks, eyebrows raising.

"You're a vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty tyrant," Emma says, nodding. "That's why I'm here to destroy you, because you've ransacked my village over the river and through the…woods. Where I'm the…head…sheriff…leader. Everything, just— everything's awful. You're awful. But no matter what I do, I can't bring myself to kill you."

"Because of my ass."

"Because of your ass. …And your great personality. But mostly your ass.

"Now, completely distraught over my inability to complete my mission, I resolve to flee from the kingdom. I can't return to my village, because it's mostly ransacked, and everyone who's left would turn against me since I failed to carry out my coup d'etat. And I can't stay  _here_ , because I'm too in love with you and your ass, and nothing can ever happen between us so I'd be really fucking sad just hanging around.

"But I can't leave before getting one last glimpse of you— and possibly getting to grope your ass— and maybe the rest of you— just really quick— and  _that's_  when I get caught trying to sneak into your chambers. And then I get arrested. And then I try to escape. But I get caught so now you're sitting on me. To…keep me from escaping again, I guess. So that pretty much brings us up to speed, I think."

Elsa looks down at her for a long moment, looking like she's either processing this really detailed backstory Emma's just spouted out, or trying really hard not to laugh.

"Well," she says finally. "That's quite the story."

"Thank you."

"I mean that it's quite the confession," Elsa tells her sternly. "You've just admitted to plotting against the crown, deceiving your way into your position at the palace, and intending to break into my chambers in order to have your way with me."

"That pretty much sums it up, yeah."

"And you continue to be insolent," Elsa says. Her fingers continue to wind their way into Emma's hair, the ones at the nape of her neck tightening sharply. She raises up slightly on her knees so that Emma's face is now very much almost engulfed in her cleavage. Emma cranes her neck up to make sure her gaze stays at Elsa's face, not at her boobs, because she knows that won't be appreciated.

"Do you know what the punishment for that kind of behavior is?" Elsa asks her. Her chest is warm against Emma's chin, and it vibrates slightly with the feeling of her voice. It's  _very_ difficult not to just nuzzle her face into it. She'd be lying if she said there wasn't a wonderful sense of heat curling low in her belly with all this teasing.

"No, I don't know," she answers, voice coming out a little hoarse.

"Normally," Elsa tells her, "I'm afraid you would have to be put to death. Luckily for you, I'm feeling generous today, what with all your charm— your looks don't hurt either."

Emma grins.

"Don't look so happy," Elsa scolds. "You still have to be punished. I can't afford to be too lenient with rule-breakers, and I absolutely can't let you go free…"

"That's probably best— I'd just end up trying to sneak into your chambers again," Emma agrees. "And now that we've established how charming and good-looking you think I am, something tells me you'd let me right in and allow me to bend you over the dresser and fuck you like some common wh—"

Elsa claps her hand over Emma's mouth, actually looking somewhere between genuinely insulted and genuinely aroused, eyes all dark and lust-filled.

"That is exactly the type of talk that's gotten you into this position in the first place," she says in what Emma thinks is supposed to be a growl, but just comes out all breathy.

The young queen shifts back a little on her lap and reaches for something on the nightstand— a candle, Emma realizes, with a pool of molten liquid wax beneath the burning wick— and brings it close between them.

This…looks a little dangerous, Emma thinks. Though at least if anything goes wrong, she supposed Elsa  _is_  an ice queen, she'll probably be able to put out any fires before they get too bad. Hopefully.

"Lay back, prisoner," Elsa orders.

Emma tries not to grin. She kind of really likes when Elsa gets like this. Normally Elsa isn't all that dominant— at all, really— but she has this really great imagination, and this weird obsession with needing to tie Emma up sometimes, and she bites a lot…she's actually kind of kinky for someone so proper and well brought-up.

Although the fire thing is new. Emma would be lying if she said she wasn't a  _little_  worried about what's about to happen.

But she likes Elsa and her games, so she lays back obediently. It's a little difficult and uncomfortable with her hands tied behind her back.

It becomes much more bearable though when Elsa uses her free hand to slowly push Emma's shirt up under her breasts, exposing her stomach. This is nice, this seems promising…

" _Ow!"_  she yelps when Elsa tilts the candle over her stomach, allowing a small dribble of hot wax to pour onto her skin.

Elsa's face immediately turns panicky and she moves the candle so she's no longer holding it over Emma's stomach.

"Oh god, Emma I'm sorry— it was just supposed to be a little bit, did I hurt you?" the younger woman asks urgently.

"No, I was just surprised— keep going, this is totally something Bloodthirsty Tyrant Elsa would do."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah yeah— keep going."

Elsa licks her lips, still looking a little unsure for a moment before she brings the candle back over Emma's stomach.

"You seem to be a difficult person to break," she says, slipping back into Bloodthirsty Tyrant mode. "Looks like I'm going to have to take some time to search for just the right spot to have you screaming in pain."

"Take as much time as you want, Your Majesty," Emma says, smiling roguishly. "And hurt me as much as you want. I'm happy as a clam so long as you're straddling my hips like this."

Elsa  _tsk_ s at her. "More insolence," she murmurs, running her hand up Emma's bare stomach making Emma clench involuntarily. "That will definitely have to be corrected."

She tips the candle again so the hot wax dribbles down the center of Emma's abs, down to her belly button.

Emma hisses, abs tightening. That was really painful. Elsa looks particularly yummy right now though. Totally worth it, especially as she feels that heat in her groin surge up and pull at her gut when Elsa shifts her weight again, leaning forward over her. The younger woman pushes Emma's shirt up farther to expose her breasts, taking the time to palm one of them and pinch and roll the nipple to satisfying hardness.

"I think you're enjoying yourself far too much, prisoner," she says. "You're taking far too long to crack, and taking up far too much of my time. Anyone else would have broken by now."

"Anyone else isn't me," Emma tells her with a smirk. "And  _I_  think you're taking your time because you're getting off on this just as much as I am, Your Majesty. I'll bet you last only another couple of minutes before you start whining and forcing me to lick up your cunt—  _fuck!"_  she yelps again as Elsa tips the candle and a fresh dribble of hot wax oozes onto her nipples.

Elsa presses her finger to Emma's lips to silence her, reaching over with her other hand to place the candle back on the nightstand. "I don't think I care much for your foul language, prisoner," she says. "I think maybe a new method is required in order to teach you some manners."

She lifts up and slides off Emma's lap, turning to retrieve something from the dresser.

Emma grins to herself. This is really fun. That wax fucking hurt, but this is really fun.

Elsa's taking too long getting whatever she's looking for, and Emma suddenly gets an idea. Curling her knees up under her chin, she wiggles her arms under herself until she's able to get them in front of her. Still tightly bound, but with  _much_  more mobility now that her hands are in front rather than behind.

Moving as quietly as she can, she gets off the bed and creeps up behind Elsa. Quick as a flash, she raises her arms up over Elsa's head and pulls her back, trapping the young queen against her, with the chain of the manacles pressing against her neck.

Elsa gasps in genuine surprise, and Emma presses her mouth to her ear, pulling her even closer so the younger woman's back is flush against Emma's chest.

"First rule of keeping a prisoner from escaping, Your Majesty," she says lowly, "don't turn your back on them."

Elsa whips her hands up to Emma's wrists, trying to wriggle her way out of her hold, but Emma just holds her tighter until the young queen seems to realize she can't win.

"What are you going to do with me?" she pants, obviously trying to sound fearful.

Emma nuzzles into Elsa's hair. "Think I'm gonna go ahead and overthrow the monarchy after all," she tells her, dragging her lips down the side of her neck. God she feels so good. "I'll have to smuggle you back to my village first of course, so you'll be out of the way when my people storm the palace. Then I'll have to appoint myself as the new reigning monarch. And when I do, I'll take  _you_  as  _my_  prisoner and turn you into a good little slave. And if you're very very lucky, I might even let you eat me out from time to time— I might even let you sleep in my bed— curled up at the foot of it, of course. You'll be my favorite. Little. Plaything."

Elsa shudders under her and Emma smirks, biting her ear. She grinds herself against Elsa's ass a little bit, just to take the edge off of the heat pooling between her thighs, and Elsa makes this quiet little whimpering sound. She starts to loosen her hold on the young queen so she can maneuver her a little better into the position she wants her, when Elsa yelps, hand flying to the side of her head.

"You okay?" Emma asks, startled by the outburst.

"Yeah— Emma, I think my hair is caught up in that chain though."

"Oh— shit, sorry. Is it—" she tries to move it gently away from her, but Elsa just yelps again.

"Fuck, I'm sorry…"

"No it's…I think it just got caught around one of the links there…can you…?

"I can't really move my arms much, do you have like, scissors or something? We can cut it…"

"We are  _not_  cutting my hair, Emma Swan," Elsa snaps.

"I didn't mean the whole thing, just like, that little piece there…"

"Absolutely not."

"Okay, well…where's the key, maybe if we can get these manacles off I can see where you're caught up and get you free."

Elsa sighs, seeming disappointed in this abrupt interruption to their game. "Fine. It's over on the nightstand there," she says.

Emma looks over and sees it. "Hm. This is going to be kinda hard getting over there with both of us stuck together like this."

Elsa sighs again. It's kind of their only option though.

Together, the two of them start shuffling over to the nightstand, Elsa hissing every so often when they're not in synch enough and her hair gets yanked a bit.

Finally they reach it and Elsa stoops down as much as she can given their current position, and picks it up, getting it into the lock and freeing Emma.

Oh, that's much much nicer. Emma hadn't been aware of how much pain her wrists were in. Much much better now.

She circles around to Elsa's front, finding the lock of hair that somehow got all twisted up in the chain, and unwinds it carefully.

When she looks back up at Elsa, the younger woman seems to be trying to stifle a laugh, lips pressed together against it. It makes Emma smile and she raises her eyebrows. "Something funny there, Your Majesty?" she asks.

"No," Elsa giggles. "I just realized how ridiculous that all was. You came up with an entire  _backstory_ , Emma! Even  _I_  didn't get into it that much!" She cracks herself up, breaking into this hysterical peal of laughter, and Emma grins at her.

"Well I really identified with the character," she says.

Elsa continues to laugh, her eyes tearing up a little. "We didn't even get to  _finish_  it," she giggles.

"Yeah, who's fault is that," Emma says, edging in and sliding her arms around the younger woman's waist.

"Yours," Elsa laughs.

" _Mine?"_

"Yours! You got your chains all twisted up with my hair! You're really bad at this, Emma."

"What? I brought that whole thing to  _life_ , I was  _great_  at that." She starts to back Elsa up slowly toward the bed. "I'm starting to think my character was right— I really  _should_  bend you over your dresser and fuck you, teach you a lesson."

Elsa's still just giggling like crazy, and she pulls Emma down on top of her on the bed, kissing her through her laughter. Emma groans happily, getting a leg between Elsa's thighs and starting to grind into her, all that arousal from before rolling back with a vengeance.

They both freeze at a sharp rap on the door.

"HELLO? EMMA?"

Anna's voice. Emma and Elsa look at each other.

"I DON'T KNOW IF YOU REMEMBER THIS, BUT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO FOR A RIDE THIS AFTERNOON?" Anna goes on, voice muffled through the door. "KRISTOFF TOLD ME TO COME GET YOU, BUT I'M KINDA NERVOUS TO COME IN BECAUSE I THINK I JUST HEARD A LOT OF WEIRD THINGS GOING ON IN THERE."

Emma covers Elsa's mouth as the young queen starts to giggle softly again.

"SO I'M NOT GONNA COME IN AND GET YOU, BUT JUST, Y'KNOW— ARE YOU GONNA COME OR NOT?"

Elsa gets free of Emma's hand on her mouth and smirks up at her, eyes gleaming as she grinds up against her thigh. "Yes Emma, are you going come or not?" she whispers.

"Uhmmmm…"

Emma looks from her to the door and back again, starting to throb a little between her legs. That whole game thing had been a really long build-up…she kind of really  _really_  wants to fuck Elsa right now.

"JUST A YES OR NO WILL DO, NO NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT TOO MUCH, IT'S ACTUALLY GETTING WEIRDER AND WEIRDER THE LONGER YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING."

"After all that work you went through overthrowing the monarchy," Elsa taunts quietly. "Are you really going to give up the chance to get even with me? I imprisoned you, tortured you…I'm sure you must be very angry about that. You probably have a lot…" her breath hitches, "…pent up…"

Her hand wanders down to cup between Emma's thighs and Emma bucks against her slightly, heat pooling deep inside her.

"…Uh, yeah, I think I'm gonna have to take a rain check, Anna!" she shouts loudly enough so Anna will hear her through the door. "Sorry! I'll uhm, I'll make it up to you tomorrow, okay?"

"ALRIGHT, CONTINUE WITH YOUR WEIRDNESS, JUST THOUGHT I'D CHECK!" Anna calls back. Emma hears the younger girl's footsteps on the stone floor beginning to turn away. "YOU GUYS ARE REALLY GROSS, JUST SO YOU KNOW!" she adds over her shoulder.

"Goodbye, Anna!" Elsa calls back. She presses the palm of her hand up against Emma's clit, which feels way way  _way_  too good after all this time.

"Now don't you have a coup you need to carry on with?" she asks.

Emma groans and takes hold of Elsa's hand at her center, pinning it against the sheets up above her head.

"Yes I do," she mumbles against Elsa's lips, before pressing in and kissing hard.


	5. Enjoy That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I have no idea why I wrote this. It's very short and very ridiculous. Promise I'll update again tomorrow for shame of how short and ridiculous it is.

**Chapter 5:** _In which revenge is a dish best served slimy_

* * *

There is a frog in the hallway. Large, green, slimy, staring up at Elsa mournfully as she opens the door to go downstairs for breakfast.

Elsa blinks at it. It's not as if she has anything  _against_  frogs really, but she would certainly prefer it if they weren't in her  _home_.

"Anna?" she calls down the hall a little nervously, not taking her eyes from the animal. If anyone would know what a frog is doing in the castle, it would be Anna. Or possibly Kristoff. She can only imagine how many forest creatures will be running around inside once the twins have grown old enough to walk.

There's no response from Anna— no surprise there, she supposes, her sister sleeps like the dead, and usually until noon. Even with the twins waking up at all hours during the night. It's a good thing Kristoff is such a light sleeper or they'd  _never_  get fed.

Elsa frowns at the frog. Apparently she is going to have to deal with it herself. If Emma were here, she'd be able to take care of it, but Emma had to go to Storybrooke for a few weeks to deal with some kind of magical problem they're experiencing over there and Elsa stayed behind in Arendelle to help Anna with the twins. It's the longest she and Emma have been apart since Emma first got to Arendelle and Elsa has found it surprisingly painful…at least until recently as Emma just found out how to use magic to appear to her in mirrors so they can see each other.

Well… _seeing each other_  makes it sound a bit more…civilized than it really is. The thing is, she might have…put on something of a  _show_  for Emma last time—which she hadn't planned on doing— she just got a little caught up in things— and there was something surprisingly thrilling about having Emma just  _watch_  her like that— she'd never really thought of herself as an exhibitionist, but—

The frog croaks loudly at her feet, butting into her thoughts. She purses her lips. Blasted thing.

"Uhm.  _Shoo_ ," she tells it firmly, trying to give it a look of clear authority. She's never had much experience dealing with animals, she's not sure how best to communicate with it.

It hops clumsily at her, landing on her feet with a wet flop which causes Elsa to let out a most undignified squeal of surprise and shoot her foot out to send the frog careening into the far wall.

She brings her hand to her chest to calm her breathing as the frog flops, stunned and on its back, to the floor. Thank goodness none of the staff are around, that may be the most unqueenly thing she's ever done. She hopes she hasn't killed it though. She takes a tentative step forward to see if it's still breathing, pausing when she notices that there seems to be something tied around its stumpy neck.

Inching in just a little closer to it, she sees that it's a tiny roll of parchment. Elsa huffs. She really doesn't want to touch the stunned frog. But she  _does_  want to know why there's a piece of parchment tied to its neck.

Carefully, she reaches forward and snatches the parchment as quickly as she can, yelping when the frog flops back over onto its feet. It doesn't move beyond that, however, and just sort of sits there, blinking up at her.

She frowns, and turns her attention to the parchment. There's something written on it.

_Dear Blondie—_

Elsa groans, because the only person who  _ever_  calls her that is Regina, and Regina isn't known for writing notes when she's in a  _good_  mood.

_Dear Blondie—_

_In case you are wondering why there is a frog currently sitting before you, you should probably ask your beloved Emma Swan. Oh wait— you can't, because the frog in front of you IS Emma Swan._

Elsa's jaw drops in alarm and she glances down at the frog who continues to blink sadly up at her, throat bobbing as it emits a shameful croak.

Elsa looks hastily at the note again. It continues:

_Yes, most unfortunately, the last time the two of you decided to participate in long-distance magic mirror sex (very tacky, by the way, how old are you two, 16?) Emma somehow got it in her head that it was entirely appropriate to do so using MY mirror, in MY vault, apparently thinking it would be deserted, unlike her parents' loft._

_Needless to say, I had absolutely no choice but to turn her into a frog. You understand._

_Kindly take this as a friendly reminder never to engage in such activities in a way that involves my personal property ever again, or you will find yourself hopping on all fours as well._

_Best Regards,_

_~R_

_P.S.— If you're worried about how to change Emma back into a human, True Love's Kiss should do the trick._

_...Enjoy that._

Elsa stares, stricken, down at the large green frog, cheeks burning with both shock and embarrassment.

Then she crouches down to the ground and extends her hand out. The frog hops clumsily into it, situating itself—  _herself—_  in the center of Elsa's palm, legs hanging out at awkward angles between Elsa's fingers.

It is—  _Emma_  is—  _very_  slimy.

"You're very lucky I love you so much," Elsa tells her.

Emma croaks apologetically at her. Then Elsa puckers her lips and leans in.


	6. Mr. Williams, Redux

**Chapter 6:** _I_ _n which an Important Secret is divulged_

* * *

 

"I think we should go make out in the closet."

"Emma, no. This is a ball celebrating a very important merger, I can't just  _leave."_

"Just really quick."

"Emma, no."

"But I really think we should."

"Emma.  _No."_

"This is like the best idea I've ever had, you shooting me down like this is really hurting my selfsteem. Self  _es_ teem."

"Are you drunk?"

Emma blinks at her. "…Noooooo…"

"Emma."

"No I'm—not. You—  _you're_  drunk. Look at…you're just…wasted, look at you. Shame on you. Queen of Arendelle."

"Let me see this—" Elsa takes the drink from Emma's hand, smelling it. "Damn it."

"What?"

Elsa rarely curses. Unless they're in the bedroom. Or…other places  _like_  the bedroom.

"Do you remember when we first met and you gave me some of that horrible whiskey?" Elsa asks.

"Evan Williams," Emma says, nodding and scowling darkly. Her old nemesis.

"Yes, well what you're drinking now is at  _least_  twice as potent," Elsa informs her. "And it's much smoother, so it's quite a bit easier to lose track of how much you've had." She looks closely at Emma. "How much  _have_  you had, by the way?"

"Psssshh," Emma says with a shrug. "Three, four glasses?" she guesses. "Could've been…there might've been five. Six. There were probably six."

Elsa grimaces. "Alright, well expect to be  _extremely_  sick in the morning, provided you survive," she says. "Let's at least get you some water…damn it," she curses again.

"What?"

"That Ambassador from the south is headed over to talk."

"Shit. Do you think he can tell I've had six of your…evil…Arendelle Evan Williams? Williamses? Wiliamseseses?"

"Probably. You're a bit cross-eyed."

"Ah. That's why I'm seeing three of you. Holy crap, imagine if there was three of you, Elsa. Now that—  _that_  is the best idea I've ever come up with."

"What, one of me isn't enough?"

"Yes, but Elsa… _three_  of you. Just…imagine the possibilities."

"I'm not sure whether I should be flattered, or jealous of…myself."

"Jealous! Oh my god, please be jealous. All of you. Three jealous Elsas. Holy shit, this just keeps getting better and better."

"Shh! He's coming over. Stand up straight, try to look normal…Ambassador!"

"'bassadror!" Emma echoes with only a little slur.

The Ambassador in question looks back and forth between the two of them, looking a little perplexed. Emma's _pretty_ sure she's standing up straight and not leaning on Elsa's shoulder, but she's also pretty sure…yeah, actually she's definitely leaning on Elsa's shoulder. She straightens, only sloshing her drink a  _little_  bit.

"Your Majesty," the Ambassador says finally, bowing his head respectfully toward Elsa. "I wanted to thank you personally for your hospitality during our negotiations…"

"Hear hear," Emma agrees with him, raising her glass in a toast. "To Elsa! …We're dating," she adds confidentially to the Ambassador. "I might…hey, come here," she whispers, leaning forward to talk very closely at his face.  _"I might even ask her to marry me."_  She straightens back again, lifting a finger to her lips.  _"Shhhhh_  though, don't tell her! It's a  _secret!"_

She glances sideways at Elsa to make sure she didn't hear. Very very fortunately, Elsa's attention was apparently caught just in time by one of those  _other_ Ambassadors from one of those  _other_  places, so she didn't hear a word. Now, the young queen's main concern is just that Emma was talking much too close to  _this_  Ambassador's face.

"Emma try to stand up straight, please?" Elsa murmurs out of the corner of her mouth, nodding graciously in that royal "queen nod of acknowledgement" thing she does as Someone Of Somewhere walks by. That one Ambassador Emma was just talking to has slipped off, Emma's worried she might have just divulged an Important Secret to him, but she can't quite remember. Maybe he didn't like her breath, that's all. Is her breath weird?

"Is my breath weird?" she asks Elsa as discreetly as she can, and blows air in Elsa's face.

Elsa wrinkles her nose in surprise. "I've smelled worse," she says finally, "but you definitely smell like a chronic, raging alcoholic. Go get some water, alright? I'll be right over to check on you, I just need to go mingle with a couple more guests…"

Emma nods and starts heading to that table with the water on it. She thinks she might have just saluted Elsa too, but she's not totally sure whether that's true or not. She might also have just saluted that Ambassador walking by, but he has a  _very_  silly hat on, so it's a necessary gesture. So many Ambassadors. Why does there have to be so many Ambassadors? She starts to count them as they go by. One-Ambassador, Two-Ambassador, Three-Ambassador, Five—

"Emma!  _Pssst, Emma!"_

Emma wheels at the sound of her name, drink sloshing out as her hands fly up to fight whoever just called her.

"Anna!" she exclaims gratefully as she sees that the redhead is actually basically on her heels— Emma hadn't been aware she was being followed so closely.

"Anna, you were so sneaky! And you're not an Amassader!" She leans in close.  _"They're everywhere!"_  she whispers.

Anna's eyes go wide and she nods, sloshing her own drink.  _"I know!"_  she whispers back. "Hey, you've got uhm— you've got something on the top of your dress…"

"Shit," Emma says, looking down at herself. "Shit that's…fuck, that's my dress all over my dri— that's my drink all over my dress. Elsa's gonna kill me."

"No, she won't kill you, Emma," Anna assures her, waving her hand dismissively.

"Gonna  _kill_  me," Emma asserts urgently. "I've…Anna, I'm such an  _embarrassment_  to her…have I…Anna, do you think I've ruined her night? What if I've ruined her night?"

Anna shakes her head. "No you haven't ruined her night, I think she's too busy," the younger girl says. "She's not making that— you know, that scary thin-lipped disappointment face she does when things aren't going good. So you're…yeah, you haven't ruined it. I think she just thinks you're wasted."

" _You're_  wasted," Emma says, pointing at her.

"I know!" Anna exclaims joyously. "Kristoff and I have been hanging out in the kitchen— Emma, there are so many sandwiches back there. And ale! We get the first pick of anything! Come, come join us!"

"I can't drink more, Elsa thinks I might die!" Emma tells her, louder than she meant because this very important-looking Lady gives her a strange look.

"No no, we'll just get you sandwiches," Anna says, patting her shoulder. "It'll suck up…they'll suck up the thing, the alcohol and you'll be all better. Kristoff told me that. Just come with me, it'll be fun. It's way more fun back in the kitchen than out here. We brought Sven in too!"

"What about the…your little people? Your kids?" Emma asks.

"Gerda's got 'em," Anna assures her. "You can't bring infants to the kitchen, Emma, they'll find the knives and poke their ears out— their eyes out. Just come— come have fun in the kitchen with us!"

Emma nods and follows her without tripping even once on her way.

Kristoff is sitting on the counter with a pitcherful of ale once they get through the door, his arm resting on Sven the reindeer's antler.

"Emma!" he greets enthusiastically, and Sven makes a kind of a mooing-grunting noise. "Welcome to the  _real_  party!"

"She's just come to get some sandwiches, Kristoff," Anna tells him, picking up a giant platter of the stuff and doing a good job of not tipping it over. "She's the drunkest I've ever seen anyone."

"I've had six of Evan Williams' evil twin brother," Emma tells him.

"Mm," Kristoff says with a kind of confused look before taking another gulp of ale.

"Emma, here," Anna says, placing a sandwich in Emma's hand. It smells like heaven and Emma wolfs it down before she even realizes what she's doing.

When she looks up from her food, Anna's sitting next to Kristoff on the counter, swinging her legs back and forth, looking at her closely with a refilled pitcher of ale at her mouth. She has a foam mustache. Emma would almost laugh, except she's a little unnerved by how closely the younger girl is watching her. She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth in case Anna's looking at her like that because she's got pieces of sandwich on her face.

"What?" she asks finally.

"I heard you," Anna tells her, eyes narrowed.

Emma chews on her lip, trying not to look alarmed. "You heard me what?"

"I heard what you said to that Ambassador guy."

"What'd she say to the Ambassador guy?" Kristoff asks.

"Yeah, what'd she say to the Ambassador guy?" Emma echoes.

"She said," Anna says, almost falling over when she points at Emma. "You said— you said you were going to ask Elsa to marry you."

Kristoff's jaw drops and he gets a stupid, gleeful look in his eyes.

Emma blinks at them both. "I didn't…say that…" she says, not actually sure whether that's true or not, but feeling her cheeks and the tips of her ears burn bright red.

"Yes she did!" Anna exclaims loudly. "Kristoff, yes she did, I  _heard_  her! …I heard you," she says ominously to Emma.

Emma's eyes dart back and forth between them. Did she really say that? She wouldn't say that…she hasn't even  _thought_  it, why would she  _say_  it…?

"Did you mean it?" Anna demands, leaning precariously toward her. Sven moo-grunts again and she rests her hand on his antler for stability. "Are you really going to marry my reindeer— my sister?"

Kristoff snorts. "You said reindeer," he laughs.

"I didn— I  _fixed_  it, Kristoff!"

Emma thinks Anna is a very spirited and scary drunk, and reaches for another sandwich to stuff her face out of fear.

Anna snatches away the sandwich platter before she can close her fingers around one of them and glares at her.

"Honest answer, Emma," she says very slowly and very clearly. "Are you gonna try and marry my sister?"

"I…" says Emma, and then she panics because she's afraid that just sounded like "aye" which is a dumb way to answer a question about marriage. Only pirates answer questions with "aye" and she's long done with pirates. No more of those ever.

"Nay," she says finally, because she thinks maybe a different type of old-timey word might be better.

"'Neigh'?" Anna demands in confusion, screwing up her face.

"Yea," Emma corrects herself. She thinks that's correcting.

"What 'yay'?" Anna demands shrilly.

"'Yay' it's a party!" Kristoff throws in, taking another sip of his ale.

"Just answer, are you gonna marry my sister or not?!" Anna screeches.

Emma blinks. And then stares at her. She feels like she should blink again, but then she thinks she and Anna might be having an unofficial, unspoken staring contest.

All three of them and Sven jump as the door to the kitchen swings open and Elsa appears in all her glory in the doorway. Emma gulps; the other two have fallen completely silent, completely motionless.

"Emma,  _there_  you are, thank god," Elsa says, looking relieved. "I was afraid you might have passed out on the way upstairs and— what's everybody staring at?"

All three of them answer at the same time, Kristoff mumbling "Your shoes aren't great," Emma saying loudly "JUST YOUR FACE, NOT YOUR BOOBS," and Anna shouting "I DON'T KNOW, WHAT ARE  _YOU_  STARING AT, ELSA?!"

Elsa looks at all three of them with that concerned look she sometimes gets, her mouth drawn into a thin line.

"Well the…last of the party guests are…leaving," the young queen says carefully, looking like she isn't sure what she should be doing, or thinking right now. She holds out her hand. "Emma, why don't you come up to bed with me, you're going to feel bad enough as it is in the morning, you don't need lack of sleep on top of that…"

"Emma's staying here," Anna interrupts.

Elsa raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Emma's staying right here," her sister says firmly. "We have serious business to discuss."

"What  _business_  could you possibly have to discuss at this hour? And as inebriated as all three of you seem to be…" She trails off abruptly, looking like she just suddenly realized something, and points. "Did you bring  _Sven_  into the kitchen?"

Kristoff slides slowly off the counter and positions himself casually in front of the reindeer. "I don't know what you're…noooo…" he says.

"Kristoff,  _get_  him out of here," Elsa says, looking  _extremely_  irritated. "Honestly, I can't leave the three of you alone for a  _second_ …"

"Well you're gonna have to leave me an' Emma alone for at least a minute," Anna tells her.

"So that you can discuss 'serious business' together," Elsa says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"What  _kind_  of 'serious business'?" Elsa asks skeptically.

"Anna says that Emma says she's gonna…"

Anna smacks her husband in the arm. "It's a  _secret,"_  she snaps at Elsa.

Elsa's face draws into that scary, thin-lipped look again and she fixes those giant blue eyes on Emma.

"Emma?" she prompts. "Are you keeping secrets from me?"

"Uhhhhh…" Emma reaches for another sandwich and begins to chew it slowly so as to appear less guilty.

"…Because I know how the three of you are when you get together," Elsa says, looking sternly from each one to the other. Her gaze catches on Sven again and she sets her jaw in renewed annoyance. "Kristoff, please— I don't want to have to ask you again to get your reindeer out of my kitchen. I shouldn't have even had to ask you  _once,_ let alone twice."

Kristoff salutes her drunkenly, just as Emma had earlier, which makes her laugh, until Elsa turns back to her with an eyebrow raised. Emma bites down on the last piece of her sandwich slowly, chewing it in time to the rhythm of Sven's feet on the floor as Kristoff leads him away.

"If you're plotting anything like what happened during that knighting ceremony last week," Elsa says sternly, "I'm going to want to hear about it right now."

Emma smiles a little stupidly at that. That knighting ceremony stunt had been hilarious.

Then she cowers again as Elsa takes a step toward her. She reaches for yet another sandwich as protection. Elsa's so sweet and innocent most of the time— she's fucking  _terrifying_  when she's angry though, all icy and snappy and withholding. She somehow manages to make Emma feel horrible without really even  _saying_  anything. Though the temperature does tend to drop with her mood so things can get really chilly really fast.

Luckily, Anna comes to her rescue. "Maybe we're just plotting something for your birthday,  _Elsa_ , did you ever think of that?" she asks.

"My birthday is in six months."

"So?  _This_  present takes a lot of preparation,  _Elsa._  It's gonna blow you right out of the water!"

"Blow you," Emma says, nodding.

Elsa gives her another one of her looks, with an even sharper eyebrow raise. Then she lifts her hands up in defeat.

"Fine," she sighs. "Discuss your 'serious business' together. But Anna, please help her up the stairs when you're done, I'll be amazed if she even remembers how to walk after how much she's had to drink."

"Will do," Anna assures her, saluting her now too.

Elsa looks at her for a moment. "On second thought, I'm going to have one of the guards escort  _both_  of you upstairs when you're done," she decides. "I'll just have him stationed outside the kitchen until you're done. I'm assuming  _that_  won't be a problem, Your Highness?" she adds, looking somewhat icily at her sister.

"Nah, that's great," Anna tells her, waving her hand carelessly. "Now go. Go be a sleepy queen, me an' Emma are gonna do some stuff."

Elsa spares one last look at both of them, then turns on her heel with a final sigh, disappearing through the doorway.

Emma huffs out a long breath in relief, then immediately panics again as the  _other_  Arendelle sister now fixes  _her_  regal glare at her.

Not really sure what else to do, Emma holds what's left of her sandwich out to her as a peace offering. She can't quite remember why there's all this uncomfortable tension between the two of them, but…

"So are you gonna marry my sister or not?" Anna demands.

Oh right, that's why.

"I…" And putting the right words in the right order seems suddenly very difficult. She's going to do her best though.

"I hadn't…planned on it," she says.

Anna looks like she's about to slap her.

"What I mean—" Emma goes on quickly "…it's just that…I never planned on marrying  _anybody._ But Elsa…I wanna be with her forever. An' I didn't really think about it till I said it…till  _you_  told me I said it. But now we're talking about it…I  _do_  see it. Wasn't my  _plan_ , but I want it. I think I told that 'mbassador guy because it was on my mind even when I didn't  _know_  it was on my mind. Y'know? But now I'm all caught up with my brain…an' I want it…I wanna show everybody how much I love Elsa…even when she's scary and mad at me 'cause I've put chickens in the suits of armor, or I'm having parties with reindeers in the royal kitchen."

"Putting chickens in the suits of armor was the best," Anna agrees, looking up like she's remembering fondly. "It sounded like manic ghosts. I think we ruined that…that trade agreement though, with that guy. He was so scared!" She starts laughing hysterically, and then sobers very abruptly and looks back at Emma.

"So you're marrying my sister," she says.

Emma nods warily. "Yes."

"Ha!" Anna exclaims loudly, clapping her hands together. It startles Emma very much and she wants to reach for another sandwich for comfort but they're all gone.

"I knew it, I  _knew_  this day would come!" the princess says, getting to her feet excitedly, if extremely tipsily. She wheels on Emma and points at her. "So. How're you gonna do it?"

Emma blinks at her. "Do…what?" she asks.

" _Propose,_ of course!" Anna shouts excitedly, jumping up and down for a second before it seems to get the best of her and she has to steady herself against the counter again. "You have to make it  _very_  romantic, and  _very_  epic…I know! You should get Elsa kidnapped by a dragon who puts her up in a tower, then go and slay it, and rescue her by swinging to her tower on a vine, and then propose to her. Only, actually no, you don't  _slay_  the dragon, you  _tame_  the dragon, and then fly on its back to the tower and pull her out and propose to her on the back of the dragon!  _That_  is what you should do!"

Emma presses her lips together nervously. "It is?" she asks.

"Yes of  _course!"_  Anna exclaims.

"Do you…are there dragons in Arendelle we can do that with?"

Anna's face falls. "No. No we don't have any dragons. No that won't work at all, we'll have to come up with a different plan…what are your feelings on mountain trolls? You could slay one of those instead."

"Do I really have to…y'know… _kill_  something…in order to propose to Elsa?"

Anna gives her a  _look_ , one of those that looks eerily like Elsa's. Then she steps forward and slings one arm over Emma's shoulders.

"Emma Emma Emma," she says somewhat patronizingly. "Of  _course_  you do. This is  _Elsa_  we're talking about! She's the best person in the entire world! …I mean, of course I love Kristoff, but let's be real…he's no Elsa."

"He's no Elsa," Emma agrees, trying to picture Kristoff in Elsa's dress.

"So you need to make a plan," Anna says. "And you need to run it by me first to see if it's bloody and romantic enough. Okay?"

"Okay," Emma agrees firmly.

"There should be gore everywhere," Anna says.

"Everywhere," Emma repeats.

"And a really nice ring, lots of pretty diamonds," Anna says.

"Lots," Emma agrees.

"Alright, we have a plan," Anna says, looking pleased. "Let's shake on it."

They both clumsily angle themselves for an awkward handshake. Emma looks at her.

"I'm very tired," she says. "And I think I'm going to throw up."

"Me too," says Anna. "We should go upstairs."

The guard Elsa promised to leave outside the kitchen to escort them upstairs loops his arms around both of them, guiding them in as straight a line as he can up the stairs. They stop at Anna and Kristoff's room first, and Anna waves goodbye to her, whispering loudly,  _"Remember, the bloodier the better!"_

Emma nods and allows herself to be steered down the hall, and then down the other hall, over to her and Elsa's room.

" _Hey,"_  the guard says quietly, just before she reaches the door. He grins and gives her the thumbs up sign.  _"Good luck with the proposal!"_

* * *

The following morning is terrible. All day is terrible. All day next day is terrible. Everything is terrible. Emma has vomited out the entirety of her stomach contents probably a thousand times at this point.

Never again.

Never  _ever_  again with the Arendelle Evan Williamses.

Elsa sits beside her on the bed for a lot of the day, and brings her water, and strokes her hair soothingly, and doesn't even scold her when some of Emma's vomit lands on her shoe. She does get a small "I-told-you-so" in though, which Emma definitely deserves. It's made a little sweeter when Elsa says it though, because it's very gentle and it's more like she's teasing her, not really reprimanding her.

She rolls over on her stomach after two days, finally feeling good enough that she was able to eat the crust off a sandwich Anna brought her, and was even able to get a couple sips of hot cocoa in, but that still didn't feel great with her stomach.

And this whole time, in between moments of spectacular sickness, she's been trying to remember…there's something she and Anna were planning. Some kind of big something. Something that has to do with a Very Important Secret.

She can't quite remember what that is though, so she closes her eyes and dozes off.


	7. Horny Toad

**Chapter 7:** _In which things actually get a little serious for a moment_

* * *

 

And then there's the time Emma is slashed through the ribs.

Elsa has spent so much of her life fighting  _herself_ , she's forgotten that there really are other people there on the  _outside_  wishing to fight her too— people fearing her, hating her, wanting her gone.

She thought she'd seen the last of that with Hans. She's made such a huge effort since then to open herself up— first to Anna, and then to the kingdom itself. The gates are almost always open, she makes every effort to be accessible to her people— she'd truly forgotten how that could backfire on her.

Worse still is that Emma is the one who suffers for that backfire.

There's no build-up, no sign, no hint that there might be unrest amongst her people. The attack comes completely out of the blue— but it's organized, too organized for it to have just been a sudden, random burst of rebellion; it's clear these people have been planning their attack for some time now. Which is even more disturbing.

The day of the attack starts no differently than any other day, except for the fact that Elsa is, once again, having to host a ball in honor of one of her trade partners' new adjustments to their agreement. It's tedious— seems  _every_  tiny little thing requires a ball these days. Someone alters a trade agreement— a ball is thrown. Someone buys a new ship— a ball is thrown.

Someone ties their  _shoe_ — a ball is thrown.

And these things aren't exactly  _cheap_  to throw…Elsa has been looking at the numbers, and Arendelle  _really_  can't afford to just keep throwing money away all willy-nilly. They aren't in danger of bankruptcy or anything, but it's going to put unnecessary strain on her people if this seemingly-endless parade of parties doesn't slow down a bit.

Emma seems to think it's funny, which Elsa can't help but be a little irked by. She loves her dearly, but at the same time, Emma doesn't seem to understand how stressful this all is. She doesn't have to constantly keep track of every penny in the royal vault, she doesn't have to reach out to the expected guests— and the  _right_  expected guests, on top of that. The wrong mixture of people often ends in threats of warfare which…to be fair, are usually just half-hearted, drunken spats, but Elsa is always the one who has to keep things civil between everyone. She needs her alliances with  _some_  people not to damage her alliances with  _other_  people…If nothing else, it's just stressful to plan the right hors d'oeuvres to keep everybody happy.

Anna, on the other hand, is nothing short of ecstatic.

"I LOVE BALLS!" she shouts as loudly as she can into the ballroom as Elsa makes sure for the fifth time this afternoon that everything is in place. Her sister bounds through the giant room, throwing her arms out wide like she's trying to embrace the whole place.

"BALLS BALLS BALLS!" Anna sings, beginning to chant an increasingly lewd song she's made up about balls. "BALLS IN THE HOUSE, AND BALLS IN  _SPACE._ BALLS IN MY HAND AND BALLS IN MY  _FACE—"_

"Anna, please?" Elsa says, massaging the sides of her head with her fingers. "I'm trying to figure out if these colors clash…"

"Who  _cares_  if they clash? _"_  Anna whines, shuffling over and resting her chin on Elsa's shoulder. She looks across the colorful banners laid out in front of them. "Everyone's gonna be too hammered to care about clashing colors…"

"I don't mean the colors  _themselves,_  I mean the kingdoms they represent," Elsa says. "See, if I put these two over there, but they get too close to  _that_  one, we're going to have a food fight on our hands. But if we  _omit_  this one, we're going to end up with an  _actual_  war between all three. But if I split them up and put one over  _here_ , and the other right  _there…"_

"Oh my god, thank you  _so much_  for being the oldest child," Anna groans. "Everything you've just said in the last 30 seconds is  _horrible."_

Elsa smiles, giving her hand a squeeze. "You're welcome," she whispers.

Anna grins and lets her go, starting to prance away. "I'm gonna go see what they're serving for snacks later!" she calls over her shoulder.

"Wait— Anna, I want you down here no later than 5, understand? And wear the green dress! And tell Emma to get ready if you see her—"

"What about Emma?" Emma asks, coming up behind her and leaning against the table.

Elsa turns around to see her, smiling gratefully. "Oh good, just the person I wanted to see," she breathes. "So I had Gerda lay out that tunic— you know, the blue one with the silver stitching— I got her to mend that tear in your breeches too, I don't think I even want to know how you got that—"

"I fell off Anna's horse into some thorns," Emma says, with a careless shrug.

"You  _did?"_  Elsa cries, abandoning her speech about clothing and running her hands over the older woman searching for injuries. " _—_ Oh  _Emma,_  when was that? Are you okay?"

Emma grins at her, catching her wrists to stop her anxiously-wandering hands. "Yeah, I'm fine," she says. "It was like 3 days ago, Els, don't worry about it."

"Well are you  _hurt?"_

Emma laughs again at her worry. "I mean I've got a bruise on my ass, but I'm really okay Elsa—"

"But how did I not  _notice?"_

"You've been busy," Emma says. "And my ass is often bruised so I don't blame you for not noticing. You're actually usually the reason it's bruised in the first place," she adds, grinning and touching her forehead to Elsa's.

Elsa sighs out a laugh, worry melting away a little when Emma tilts her head and kisses her softly.

"You gonna be okay?" the older woman asks her when they separate. "It seems like you've been on a non-stop party kick for the last month or so. You're gonna wear yourself out."

"I'm really tired," Elsa admits, leaning forward and nuzzling her head into the sweep of Emma's neck. She sighs. "I'm hoping this will be the last one…for another week or so at the very least."

Emma kisses the top of her head, wrapping her arms around her. "Good," she says. "I've missed having you around to play with."

Elsa laughs and straightens back up, looking at her. "Be here tonight, okay?" she requests softly. "Please don't sneak off with Anna and Kristoff. And—maybe try to stay at least  _somewhat_  sober?"

Emma actually looks a little ashamed at Elsa's request. "Yeah, of course I'll be here— here and sober," she says. She rubs the back of her neck. "I'm sorry, I've been kind of an asshole— I know you've been having to juggle a lot of stuff all on your own lately, and I've just been…well…an asshole."

Elsa leans in and kisses her again, smiling softly at her when they separate. "All is forgiven," she assures her. "Just be here to help me juggle things tonight and I promise I'm all yours tomorrow."

"Hm, sounds promising," Emma growls into her ear, squeezing her arm around her waist and reaching down to slap her ass. "I'll be here. No later than 5. In the blue tunic with the mended breeches. And completely alcohol-free."

Elsa smiles gratefully, giving her one last kiss before turning back to try to place these stupid clashing colors.

* * *

Emma holds to her word. She shows up on time, looking particularly beautiful in the blue tunic with the white undershirt, and passes up on every opportunity to drink.

Elsa leans into her at one point and murmurs, "Who are you and what have you done with my Emma?"

Emma laughs and leans in as well. "Don't get used to it— I'm turning right back into a sloppy, drunk pumpkin at the stroke of midnight," she says. Then she hesitates and adds, "That's a Cinderella reference, you might not have gotten it…"

"Your Majesty," someone interrupts. Elsa smiles at him, offering her hand. God, she can't keep any of these people straight anymore. She thinks this one is from somewhere up North, but she doesn't dare to say anything about it, in case she's wrong. His colors match up with the banner, but sometimes these people do not color-code themselves the way Elsa would prefer…

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to retire early," continues the possibly-Northern delegate. Oh god, maybe he's from one of the Western Isles, those two colors are very similar…red or purple? A sort of purplish red? They all start looking exactly the same after awhile…

"…wife has been very ill, and I hate to keep her here too long," he finishes.

Elsa reins her wandering mind back in to process whatever it is he was just saying. Something about leaving early and a sick wife. There may have been more to it, but Elsa isn't all that interested. She just wants this ball to end.

So she gives whoever this man is a gracious nod, and says her farewells to him, and tries not to fall asleep in the midst of it.

"Hey," Emma murmurs softly to her, putting an arm discreetly around her waist. "You look like you're fading pretty fast, you gonna be okay? I can always get Anna to cause some kind of commotion and get these people out of here."

Elsa smiles tiredly. "No I'll just…I think I'll just get some water, I'll perk back up again."

"Well I'll get it for you," Emma offers. "You just stand here, look regal, and I'll be back in a sec."

Elsa nods gratefully, and turns her attention back to surveying the crowd as Emma slips off. She jumps when someone mutters something quickly in her ear.

She glances around and sees that Anna has just sidled up beside her.

"Did you just say something?" she asks.

"I said  _Sven is in the courtyard,"_  Anna mutters out of the side of her mouth, before stuffing a chocolate pastry in her mouth and chewing it voraciously.

Elsa turns her head and looks fixedly at the dancing mass of people in front of her, refusing to look at her younger sister when it's obvious she's up to something.

"Why are you telling me this?" she can't help but mutter back.

Anna takes a moment to swallow before answering. "Kristoff and I put him there," she says discreetly. "Kristoff says that based on Sven's normal pacing habits, there's an eighty percent chance he'll poop at least four times right in the center of it. Then, when all your guests finally leave… _bam!_  They'll step right in a pile of Sven's finest."

Elsa grits her teeth and does her very best not to have an aneurism. "I would love an explanation as to  _why_  you have done this," she hisses, smiling and nodding at someone across the room.

"It's part of me and Kristoff's long-term plan to get you out of having to throw all these balls," Anna hisses back. "Emma told me earlier that you're getting really worn out, that you've just had far too many balls on your hands."

"Anna."

"I know I know. Anyway. So Kristoff and I decided to come to your rescue, and we started thinking…what's a good way to politely say to these people 'please never come back here ever again' without offending anyone. Then I remembered how you and I went to that one village and everywhere you stepped there was horse poop. And we both decided we never wanted to go back there. Not because the people weren't nice, we just…you know, we got shit all over our shoes."

"Don't say 'shit,' we're in front of guests."

"…I'm just saying…it doesn't leave a very good impression."

"No it doesn't, which is precisely why you are going to go out to the courtyard and put Sven back in the stables where he belongs."

"No— I mean it doesn't leave a good impression in, you know, the  _grander_  sense," Anna says. "No one will blame  _you_  for the reindeer poop, they'll just remember…'oh that was the place that I got reindeer poop on my fancy new boots, I'd rather we didn't throw another ball there, we'll just invite Queen Elsa to  _our_  kingdoms instead.' No one has any hurt feelings, no one goes home and feels like starting a war…they just consider other options. This is a very polite and fail-proof plan, I'm telling you."

Elsa sets her jaw.

"Remind me that when I die, you are absolutely  _not_  allowed to succeed the throne," she hisses.

"That's probably a good idea," Anna agrees, snatching up another pastry as a tray-bearing serving girl walks by. "It's gonna work though. Just you wait and see."

There is a break in the music as the musicians take a moment to refresh themselves— Elsa looks over to see that a very large gentleman has caught poor Emma up in a conversation, delaying her ability to return to Elsa. Elsa gives her a small grin from across the room as Emma looks at her pleadingly to be saved from this man.

She's distracted by an abrupt noise from outside, making both herself and Anna jump. It seems to be the sound of Sven braying loudly and thumping against the doors to the palace.

Elsa turns to Anna, once again trying not to have an aneurism. "Is  _that_  part of your ingenious plan too?" she asks. "Have Sven throw himself at the palace doors until he finally breaks them down and barges through into the ballroom?"

Anna isn't looking at her though— she's looking toward the doors, face surprisingly serious. "Elsa, that's not how he normally sounds," she says.

"What, has Kristoff been teaching  _you_  how to speak to reindeer, too?" Elsa asks blandly.

"No— Elsa, he sounds scared," Anna says, taking a small step forward.

Elsa listens for a moment, and one by one the rest of the guests seem to pick up on the sound and quiet themselves to listen too. There isn't just the sound of Sven braying anymore…there are shouts outside, and…metal clashing—

"Your Majesty, we need to get you out of here," comes an urgent voice behind her. Elsa turns to find her Captain of the Guard and five of his men striding quickly toward her. The ballroom seems to start to hum as all the guests start murmuring with concern, and wariness of what's happening.

Elsa takes a small step forward towards the Captain. "Why? What's going on?" she asks.

There's a sudden  _bang_  against the main doors and suddenly those clashing, shouting sounds are no longer outside.

The air splits with the sounds of guests screaming and trying frantically to find a way to escape the room as what looks like nearly a hundred men armed with crude, ill-made weapons charges into the main hall, and spilling into the ballroom. Elsa's troops are on their heels, trying to break through the mass of rebels and drive them back, but the rebels are a hundred to their seventy, and a group of them barges through into the ballroom.

Panic suddenly ripping through her, Elsa feels her powers begin to crackle through the room, jagged edges of ice bursting forward from the floor.

Before she can do any more, she feels the Captain's hand grip her arm and pull her through into the kitchen and out into one of the side halls.

"What are you doing— we have to go back there!" she cries, yanking her arm from his grip.

The Captain stares at her. "There are a hundred men in there, Your Majesty, and  _you're_  their target," he tells her sharply.

"But I—"

"I know you're powerful," the Captain interrupts, "but you can't take all of them, there's too many. We need to get you out of here, right now— let my men take care of them, our priority has to be you—"

"My  _sister_  is in that room!" Elsa shouts at him.  _"Emma_  is in that room!"

"No I'm not— right here," comes Emma's voice as she comes jogging up behind them. "Elsa, we need to get you…where's Anna?"

"Emma, she's still in there," Elsa cries, and begins to head back for the kitchen. "I'm going back for her."

"No— Elsa—"

She feels two sets of hands grab her, both Emma and the Captain. She wheels on them, tugging her arms from them furiously. The walls around them are starting to ice over.

"I'm not leaving her there," she snaps at them.

"We've sent a group of our men to get her out of there," the Captain tells her urgently. "Please, Your Majesty, you're not safe here…"

"All those men out there are after  _you_ ," Emma adds. "Els, we've gotta get moving, Anna's being taken care of— I saw her and Kristoff, they've got six of your guard around them…"

"But they're still in there!" Elsa shouts. "She's my  _sister,_  Emma, I'm going back there for her!"

Emma hesitates, jaw clenching. "Okay," she says. "Okay— I'm going with you though, stay close to me, okay?"

Elsa nods and the two of them sweep back down the hall toward the kitchen, the Captain following closely in their wake.

The ballroom is in chaos— there doesn't seem to be anyone killed, but several wounded from all sides; the rebels, Elsa's men, and the guests, all shouting and trying to fight each other off.

Elsa disregards all of them, eyes searching frantically for Anna. Through the melee she's able to glimpse her sister flanked by Kristoff and several of the Arendelle guard. One of the rebels breaks through their rank and Elsa rushes at him, only to see Anna take him out with an iron candlestick.

A second one is coming at her though, and Elsa sends a sheet of ice shooting toward him. He's caught in the shoulder and rebounds away, and Elsa lunges forward, grabbing her sister and pulling her and Kristoff toward the kitchen exit. In her haste, she doesn't even see the blurred form of one of the rebels as he bears down on her until the last second.

Before she can even work up a response to his impending approach, a streak of blue crosses her vision as Emma runs to her rescue, one of the fallen men's sword in her hand, which she plunges deep into the attacker's side.

She jerks forward a bit, grunting loudly as he falls to his knees and seems to yank something from her own side.

"Emma?" Elsa calls to her urgently.

The older woman turns her head slightly, giving her a sloppy smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm good," she says, voice a little strained. "He just kinda punched me in the stomach on the way down, no worries. You guys go, I'm gonna stay here and help— we're pushing them out, none of them were trained fighters, they're going down easy. Go on, I'll be right there."

"Emma…"

"I'll be right there, Els," she says again, offering that same sloppy smile. "Just wanna see the last of these fuckers taken down. It'll make me feel better. Go on."

"Your Majesty, please," the Captain implores her.

"I'll stay here and look after her," Kristoff tells her, crouching and picking up one of the fallen weapons too. "You and Anna just get somewhere safe. Okay?"

Both she and Elsa hesitate. There do seem to be less of those men— they  _are_  being pushed back.

"I can still help—"

" _Elsa_! Go!" Emma snaps harshly at her.

Elsa stiffens in surprise, but takes Anna's hand and begins to follow the Captain out through the kitchen.

* * *

Emma is right— none of the rebels are trained fighters, and it isn't long before they're all either driven out, or cut down.

But she failed to mention that when she said that man had "punched her in the stomach" what she really meant was that he'd slashed her through the ribs.

Elsa's hands are trembling as Kristoff runs into her room carrying an ash-white, near-unconscious Emma in his arms, the sounds of the fighting downstairs quieting slowly away. He delivers her onto Elsa's bed, tearing the pillowcase off of one of the pillows and bunching it up to press into Emma's side.

"Hold this here," he orders Elsa. "Don't ease up, Anna and I are going to go find the physician."

"But I—"

"We'll be right back," he says, and turns, taking Anna's hand and running back out into the hall.

* * *

The court physician, who couldn't possibly care less about social ranking or hierarchy, takes one sweeping look at the situation, and dubs Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff his deputy nurses.

"Fifteen wounded downstairs," he mutters to himself, "ten wounded on the docks, servants scattered like lunatics…Princess!"

Anna snaps to attention.

"You will assist me with the guests in the ballroom," he instructs. When Anna nods sharply, he turns his attention to Kristoff. "You. Ice man. You will help transport medicine to the docks. You have a sleigh and horse, correct?"

Kristoff nods— this isn't the time to correct him.

"Majesty!" the physician barks at Elsa.

Elsa turns just her head toward him, afraid to move her body at all for fear that she won't be putting enough pressure on Emma's wound to keep her alive.

"You can ease up, girl, you're going to snap her ribs," the physician informs her. "She's lost blood, but she'll be alright long as we move quickly enough."

He takes out a series of items from his bag and places them quickly on the nightstand. He points.

"Clean the wound, burn the needle, stitch her up, mix these, put them on her, bandage her up. Clear?"

Elsa stares at him. "M-me?" she stammers.

The physician smacks his lips impatiently. "I've got twenty-five other patients to look after, Majesty, some of them mortally wounded— you want this one to live, you're going to need to see to her yourself. Questions?"

"Several—"

"They'll have to wait. Get started, I'll be back when I can."

He turns on his heels, motioning for Anna and Kristoff to follow him, and exits, leaving Elsa alone with Emma.

"Don't know about you," Emma slurs suddenly, making Elsa jump, "but I think that guy seriously needs to work on his bedside manner."

"You're awake," Elsa breathes, barely keeping herself from crying in relief.

"Kinda. Thinking I might wanna be out though once you start sewing up my skin." She gives that sloppy smile again.

"Emma I'm— I'm sorry, I have no idea how…"

"'S'okay, I'll walk you through it," Emma murmurs. "Believe it or not, I've actually had to do this before. I'll tell you all about it once we've established I'm not bleeding to death."

"Emma…"

"Sorry sorry. I'll walk you through. Just…wash it as well as you can, then burn the needle. We'll go from there."

* * *

Elsa tries as hard as she can to keep her hands steady as she holds the needle to the flame.

"Maybe we should get Gerda to stitch me up. She did a bang-up job on my breeches," Emma says with a clumsy grin.

Elsa looks up urgently from burning the needle. "Should I get her?"

Emma laughs shallowly and stifles a watery-sounding cough, pressing the pillowcase harder into her own side. "Nah, nah, I was just joking, you'll do fine, you'll do fine," she says, reaching to pat Elsa's shoulder and missing completely.

"Do not  _joke_  with me right now, Emma Swan!" Elsa snaps.

"I know, I'm sorry. Listen, I trust you, okay? That's why I get to joke so much. 'Cause you're gonna do just fine. I'm in good hands."

Elsa's gut twists nervously at her words, but she threads the needle, forcing her hands to still, and begins the first stitch.

* * *

Pain turns Emma silly, apparently. Well that, and the massive amount of blood she's lost, and the stress and exhaustion from the evening. But the pain of being stitched up seems to sharpen that silliness exponentially.

"How…do you tell…the difference between…a frog, and a horny toad?" she breathes with a waggle of her eyebrows through the pull of the needle through her skin.

Elsa just focuses on the stitching. She's nearly done…this might all end up okay…

"…Because a frog…says  _'ribbit ribbit'_ and a…horny toad says… _'rub it, rub it,'"_ Emma exclaims breathlessly, with a somewhat manic-sounding giggle at the punchline of her own joke. She tilts her head up at Elsa with a completely ridiculous grin. "Get it? Because the horny toad…he's  _horny._  So he says  _rub it,_  not  _ribbit…_ Wow, you're getting good at this," she adds, looking down and wincing as Elsa pulls through a sixteenth stitch.

"Glad you approve of my skills as a seamstress," Elsa murmurs, her attention focused right on this stitch, she's almost done, Emma's going to be okay, she is…

Emma nods. "Yeah, you're giving…you're giving…Gerda…a run for her money. Hey, do you wanna get married?"

Elsa nearly drops the needle. She manages to hold onto it though, barely, and keeps her gaze locked on the thread as she regains her composure and pulls it through.

"Did you think of that question because you were just talking about being horny?" she mutters, trying to keep her voice even as she pierces the needle through for a seventeenth stitch.

"No I was…I was talking about a  _toad_  being horny," Emma mumbles absently. "And he's horny 'cause…'cause that's a species…of toads. But then he's…horny…it's a pun…get it…?"

Elsa chances a glance at her and realizes Emma is starting to drift off. Or pass out. One of those. Elsa knots the thread at the last stitch, snapping the needle free, and leans over her.

"Emma?" she asks.

"Yeah, I'm…" Emma murmurs, eyes closed. "…Think I'll go to sleep for a bit…if that's cool…"

"Alright, I'm going to make that mixture the physician told me to, but after that I'm going to need you to sit up, okay? I need to be able to get this bandage around you."

"Sure, sure," Emma says with a slight head movement Elsa thinks is supposed to be a nod.

She turns to the jars the physician left for her. There doesn't seem to be any particular measurement— hopefully just throwing them all together will suffice. She does, dumping them all into a small clay dish, mixing them until they form a thick grayish paste. She dips her fingers in it and turns back to Emma, painting it onto the wound. Emma twitches a little in her sleep and Elsa winces sympathetically, smoothing it over before turning back for more.

Once the wound seems sufficiently caked, Elsa puts her hand on Emma's shoulder.

"Emma," she says softly. "Emma I need you to wake up for a minute, okay? I need to get this bandage on you."

Emma twitches awake, eyes snapping up to Elsa's, face pale and drawn. The pain-induced silliness from before seems to have gone; now she just looks groggy and hurting. With a disoriented nod, she starts trying to sit up, wincing almost immediately. Realizing her mistake, Elsa hurries to help ease her up to a sitting position, brushing damp hair out of her face.

"This will only take a moment," she tells her, pressing the end of the bandage to Emma's side and beginning to unwind it so there is enough slack to wrap around her torso.

It's…somewhat awkward. She has to have Emma hold her own shirt up a little bit so that it's out of the way and Elsa can reach her arms around her to bring the bandage around, several times over. Elsa keeps having to angle her head so she isn't knocking her forehead into Emma's chin.

She finally finishes covering the whole wound to her satisfaction and secures the bandage, dropping her hand to Emma's ribs to support her. Emma's balance sways a little bit and her cheek brushes against Elsa's, and Elsa stays there a moment, pressing her cheek to Emma's before finally drawing back just a little bit to look at her.

She starts to say something, but Emma interrupts her, voice hoarse.

"You didn't answer my question," she says, sounding exhausted.

Elsa smooths her hair back. "What question?"

"The one I asked earlier, you didn't answer."

"The one about the toad? I thought you told me already, the horny toad…"

Emma shakes her head. "The one  _after_  the toad.  _After."_

She sighs exhaustedly, falling forward a little bit so her head is in the sweep of Elsa's neck.

Elsa presses a kiss to the top of her head and eases her back down to the bed to sleep.

* * *

Emma sleeps through the entire next day.

It's all Elsa can do not to stay up there with her and check on her every thirty seconds to make sure she hasn't died. Kristoff volunteers to in her place, so that both she and Anna can go and find out what the damage is, and what exactly happened.

The Captain meets them down in the main hall, dark circles under his eyes. He walks them through the palace to see the damage that's been done. Things are a mess, it will take a long time to repair a lot of this, but it isn't as bad as it could have been. The Captain goes on to explain what happened— it was that man from before, the one Elsa couldn't place the origins of, the one in that almost-red, almost-purple coat. He  _was_  from one of the Western kingdoms, a man Elsa vaguely remembers having met years ago, one who had seemed overly, even fearfully interested in her powers. After leaving the ball early, he had opened the gates for several of his guerrilla force to barge their way into the palace itself as a protest that this new trade agreement should be headed by what he scathingly called "that ice witch."

"And where is he now?" Elsa asks, keeping her voice even so as not to appear shaken by the term. Anna still takes her hand and squeezes it reassuringly.

"Emma chased him down," the Captain tells her, looking proud somehow. "She must have recognized him from talking to him earlier. He's very much out of commission, Your Majesty— if Emma hadn't been so wounded herself, her aim might have been a little better and she'd probably have killed him. As it was, she missed the heart, but our men have taken him down to the dungeons to be dealt with when the smoke clears."

Elsa nods, trying as hard as she can to look reassured by this bit of news, and dismisses him.

Anna squeezes her hand again. "That was just one man," she says firmly. "You  _know_  that's not how most people look at you. Our people love you. Our trade partners love you. He was just one man, one stupid, cowardly little man. He doesn't matter."

"He came here, he attacked…all these people…because of me, because he was afraid of  _me."_

"There's always going to be crazy people, Elsa," Anna says, taking her other hand. "But this isn't your fault— people have started wars over much less. Maybe even because of reindeer poop on their shoes, I don't know."

Elsa allows herself to smile a little bit.

"That guy was crazy," Anna says again. "And he went out and found a handful of other crazies to follow him on a really stupid, crazy mission. But no one died last night. You're safe. Emma's safe. I'm safe. Kristoff and Sven are safe."

"All our trade partners…we've probably lost them…"

"We lost one," Anna tells her. "He withdrew earlier today and is headed back to his kingdom. The rest are still sticking with us. They know that guy was crazy. These aren't stupid people, Elsa, they get it. You're not to blame for any of this. And…you know, if nothing else, this'll probably keep you from having to throw any more balls in the near future."

Elsa sighs, feeling exhausted, and pulls Anna into a hug, embracing her tightly.

"I'm so glad you're safe," she whispers into her hair. She kisses the top of her head. "And I'm so proud of the way you took that one man out with a candlestick."

Anna laughs and pulls away grinning. "I'm scrappy," she says, "Emma said so." She tilts her head looking at Elsa. "Why don't you go be with her for a couple hours. I can handle things for a little bit down here."

"Are you sure?"

Anna nods. "Yeah yeah. That was pretty awful what both of you had to go through last night, you should be together. Kristoff and I will take over until the afternoon, okay?"

Elsa nods gratefully, giving her sister's hand another squeeze, and heads up the stairs.

* * *

Emma is sleeping when Elsa gets to her room. Kristoff stands to let her in.

"The physician was in here about an hour ago," he says quietly so as not to wake her. "He even got her to eat a little bit and he changed her bandages and everything. He said she's looking good. He also said your stitching was 'crude and far below his standards' but that it was 'adequate for being done by a useless monarch.'"

Elsa smiles tightly, giving his shoulder a small squeeze.

"Would you mind leaving us for a bit?" she asks him.

He shakes his head understandingly and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Elsa approaches the bed as quietly as she can. Emma is curled up, turned over on her side, sleeping peacefully. The sun coming in through the windows is giving her this almost angelic look, which kind of makes Elsa smile because the Emma she knows is wonderful, but definitely not angelic.

She crawls onto the bed, turning over so she's facing Emma, eyes scanning over every inch of her face. She can't help but reach forward and tuck an errant strand of hair back behind Emma's ear, stroking it softly.

The motion wakes Emma up, and the older woman blinks slowly to bring Elsa into focus. Once she does, a tired smile spreads across her face.

"Hi you," she says softly.

"Hi you," Elsa whispers back, smiling softly as well. She cups Emma's cheek, thumb stroking gently at her cheekbone. "How are you doing?"

"I'm in a pretty not small amount of pain," Emma says, nuzzling her face into the pillow a little bit. "I'm thinking once I can move a little better I should probably go back to Storybrooke. For, y'know, some more modern painkillers."

"Tea and herbs aren't doing it for you," Elsa murmurs knowingly.

Emma grins again. "No, not really. I was hoping for some Vicodin or something like that. Plus…I'm kind of wondering about infections and things…probably best to get that checked out."

"We'll get you to one of your doctors in your world," Elsa assures her, hand sliding down to hook into the open collar of Emma's shirt. "Later today, if you can move, we'll have you carried to the portal. I'll go with you, make sure you get to one of your hospitals."

Emma gazes at her, seeming soothed by Elsa's touch.

"Mind if I ask you something?" she asks after a moment.

Elsa nods. "Go ahead."

Emma huffs out a breath, offering a somewhat embarrassed smile. "Okay, this is me hoping third time's the charm—," she says, "—Elsa, will you marry me?"

Elsa's lips part.

"…Because you kinda didn't answer after I asked you twice last night. And granted, I was a little delirious at the time but I really meant it. And I mean I guess I just assumed it was a given that we'd always be together because we have that whole True Love thing, but I actually sort of want the whole celebration part of it. Like, not just  _knowing_  that we're always going to be together, but actually celebrating that, and committing to that, and showing off to all our friends and family how awesome we are—"

Elsa smiles.

"Also I already told Anna I was gonna ask you, but I sort of forgot because I drank  _way_  too much at that one ball awhile ago. But I'm pretty sure she told me there had to be a lot of blood everywhere when I asked you. …I don't quite remember why that is, but I figure, I was bleeding a lot last night, so that probably counted, so I just thought I'd check in, y'know, so…do you want to marry me?"

Elsa bites down on her lip to keep from either laughing or crying, she isn't completely sure which.

"You get very wordy when you're nervous," she comments softly.

"Elsa, I really need you to give me an answer, I'm actually starting to get a little insecure here."

Elsa's gaze dips down to her lips before flitting back up to her eyes. "I wasn't going to say yes last night," she says carefully, "because I thought it was just a sort of knee-jerk reaction from you— we both thought you might die, and maybe you were just trying to prove something, or say goodbye even."

"It wasn't a knee-jerk," Emma tells her earnestly. "I don't think my knees even  _can_  jerk right now without me ripping open my stitches."

Elsa laughs, and also grimaces at the idea.

"If it makes it seem less knee-jerky, I can wait to propose to you again until after I come back from the Storybrooke hospital," Emma says. "I can do the whole thing, I can get down on one knee, and give you a ring, bring you flowers, a mariachi band…"

Elsa presses a finger to her lips before sliding her hand forward to cup her face again. "I like this better," she says. She shifts in a little closer. "And of course I'll marry you, Emma, there wasn't ever any doubt of that."

Emma breathes a sigh of relief. "Good, because I thought I'd ruined my chances with that dumb horny toad joke," she says. "I seriously…that was  _not_  how I pictured proposing to you."

Elsa hums a laugh, and brings her hand down a little to trace at Emma's mouth, and then her jaw, the place just beneath her ear…

Emma's eyes start to drift closed slowly and Elsa shifts closer again, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Go to sleep, Emma," she whispers.

"Don't let the bed bugs bite," Emma mumbles in answer, seeming to already be asleep.

Elsa laughs softly, nuzzling her face into the pillow just above Emma's head, and drifting off as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know, that one wasn't TOTALLY fluffy like I promised this collection would be. I'm sorry. I just needed a little drama. Just a little.
> 
> Also wanted to say a quick thank you to everybody for reading. 
> 
> Okay, that's all. See you next chapter! Almost done!


	8. Allergies

**Chapter 8:**   _In which everyone is a moron and Regina is sick of it, quite frankly_

* * *

Regina attends both the Arendelle-side wedding, and the Storybrooke-side one. Not because she  _wants_  to. But Emma insisted upon making her her Maid of Honor which...of all the ludicrous ideas. Since when has Regina ever been the  _slightest_  bit invested in Miss Swan's relationship with Elsa.

Except for giving Emma continual advice when Elsa was in Storybrooke.

Except for vowing to help Emma find a way to get to Elsa once she left.

Except for building a fucking  _portal_  to get Emma to Arendelle.

Well that won't do. She's gone much too soft. She'll just have to make an extra point of setting something on fire just to reclaim her status.

And besides…what has all this goody-two-shoes behavior gotten her? Emma grins like a huge idiot throughout the entire Storybrooke ceremony, and almost trips over her own feet on her way to the altar. Her dress doesn't even have a  _train_ , there's nothing to trip  _on_. It's all Regina can do not to clap a hand to her face in embarrassment. And then  _Elsa_  dissolves into some mixture between a teary-eyed fit and a giggle fit in the middle of saying her vows and has to start them over twice just to get through them. And the way they practically smash their faces together after Dr. Hopper says "You may now kiss the bride" is easily the most disgusting display Regina has ever seen.

The Arendelle ceremony is at least a little more formal, Emma is able to walk in a straight line, Elsa keeps it together long enough to actually say her vows. But Elsa still practically jumps Emma at the "You may now kiss the bride" part which...well Regina supposes she shouldn't have expected anything less.

Snow hands her several tissues at the Storybrooke ceremony.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with these?" Regina demands.

"You might want to dab your cheeks a little, there's mascara running down them," Snow suggests with a look Regina thinks looks  _much_  too close to amusement for her taste.

Regina has half a mind to set the tissues on fire and fling the ashes in Snow's face. The very idea...Regina does not  _cry_  at weddings. She  _doesn't_. She's obviously just allergic to love-sick morons.

Unfortunately, she has a similar encounter later at the Arendelle ceremony, when the infuriatingly bright Anna bounces over and offers her a handkerchief.

"You're really emotional for an ex-villain, aren't you," the ginger-haired nuisance observes.

And even  _Henry_ , her son, the real love of her life, betrays her back at the Storybrooke ceremony when he says, "Oh my god, Mom, pull it together, you're a total mess right now."

She scowls darkly at him and goes over to stand beside Charming and Robin, both of whom seem to be having an annoyingly good time.

"Regina!" Robin calls in greeting, face splitting into a wide grin. Then he frowns in concern and asks, "Darling, what's the matter, you've got tears all down your face."

The nerve of it. True love or no, Regina never wants to see his stupid face again. Not if he's going to speak to her with  _that_  tone _._

Later, after the wedding in Arendelle, when everyone is running around dancing surrounded by  _hardly_  even impressive ice sculptures and  _hardly_  even beautiful lanterns, Regina finds herself standing by one of many refreshment tables beside Kristoff and that animal he always talks to. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, but wisely doesn't spurt any nonsense about tears or crying at weddings.

Surprisingly enough, he says, "You look happy."

"Did you just say something to me, reindeer man?"

He rolls his eyes— he's always been extremely insolent towards royalty. "Nothing," he says. "Just, you look happy, that's all."

Regina considers his comment and looks across the courtyard where everyone is dancing. She's not… _unhappy_ , she supposes, given that she's at the wedding of the woman she had vowed to destroy when she first met her. The word "friend" still tastes odd in her mouth, but not  _as_  odd as it once did, and, she supposes it's not  _that_  terrible of a feeling.

And as far as happiness goes…she doesn't believe she's ever seen two people look quite as happy as Emma and Elsa do right now. Thankfully, they aren't giving each other those overly soppy looks that Snow and Charming tend to give each other. They are smiling a lot though, dancing in close to perfect unison without it being any kind of  _formal_  dance at all. Sometimes they have moments of not  _quite_ unison— mostly Emma's fault— at which point they both dissolve into laughter and touch foreheads, or kiss, or what have you.

And Regina supposes she can admit that Elsa has one of the most beautiful smiles she's ever seen when she looks at Emma. And she supposes she can also admit that Emma's eyes sparkle exquisitely every time they look at each other.

And she  _supposes_  she can admit that she just let out something very close to a contented sigh, and that her eyes feel a little prickly and wet again.

Wordlessly and without looking at her, Kristoff reaches over and hands her a napkin to wipe her eyes with.

Emma and Elsa dance for nearly an entire hour without stopping, which even Regina can admit is impressive. Emma seems to finally hit her limit though and she whispers something to Elsa and separates from the crowd. Elsa, Regina notices, continues to dance somewhat goofily with her sister, while Kristoff and Sven have wandered over to one of the other tables where they seem to be hoarding away the carrots.

"Hey!" Emma calls to her, trotting over and grinning. She stops beside her, looking very out of breath and starts fanning herself with her hand. She looks out over the dancing crowd and turns back to Regina with an even bigger grin if possible. "Not bad, huh?" she says. She points at the…alright, they're magnificent…the ice sculptures. "Elsa made those."

"I assumed as much," Regina says, nodding.

"And  _I_  even lit the lanterns with my magic," Emma adds, looking absurdly proud of herself. "Well— most of them anyway. I kinda set a couple of them on fire accidentally, but...I got the hang of it eventually."

Regina finds herself smiling, completely against her will, and looks out over the crowd. Emma leans back against the refreshment table and looks out with her.

"You should go dance with someone," Emma says. "Y'know, since Robin can't come through the portal, you're a free woman here, I won't tell if you start dancing a jig with one of the rabble. What happens in Arendelle stays in Arendelle."

Regina looks at her, raising her eyebrow. "You're no good at making jokes, Miss Swan."

"Oh, we're back to 'Miss Swan' now?"

"We're always back to 'Miss Swan', Miss Swan, because you continue to be just as ridiculous now as you were when you first came to Storybrooke."

Emma smiles, and looks back out over the crowd. "I'm glad you're here," she says, voice suddenly very sincere. "I'm never going to forget the fact that you got me back here to her. I'm, y'know...I'm really glad you were able to come see what you did for us. There just aren't, there are  _no_   _words,_  Regina. You gave us this. I'm never gonna forget that."

Regina doesn't tear up again. She doesn't. She does sniff loudly though, and then coughs to cover it up.

"Allergies?" Emma asks without looking at her.

"Horrible ones," Regina says. "It's just that time of year."

She thinks she's seeing Emma smirk a little bit out of the corner of her eye, but she chooses to ignore that. She watches as Elsa breaks away from the crowd now too and comes over to them, all out of breath and grinning like Emma was. The young queen slips her arms around Emma's waist and kisses her. Regina tries not to be sick.

"Anna and some of the other guests are asking me to make an iceskating rink, do you want to join?" Elsa asks.

Emma laughs. "How are you not tired yet?" she asks.

"I'm exhausted. But I'm not stopping for a second, not today, I don't think I even  _could_  stop right now, I'm too excited."

She's giving one of those smiles. And Emma's eyes are doing that twinkly thing. Regina decides that now is probably a good time to slip off.

Elsa shoots her hand out and takes her by the arm before she can get away though.

"You have to join us too," she says brightly.

"I don't skate," Regina tells her flatly.

"Anna will teach you," Elsa says.

" _Anna?"_

"She's determined to skate with you and learn all about you, I'm afraid you don't have a choice." That smile again. Regina supposes she's  _somewhat_  endearing.  _Somewhat._

She rolls her eyes and waves her hand irritably. "Fine, on with it. I'm not staying past twelve though, I need to get back home and make sure Henry and Robin haven't trashed the place."

Elsa nods understandingly, still looking like she's floating off somewhere on cloud nine, and she steps just the toe of her shoe elegantly to the ground. Ice spirals out and stretches to cover a large portion of the courtyard, creating a large oval for the people who cleverly thought to bring skates to an ice queen's ceremony. Elsa twists her hand slightly so that both Emma and Regina suddenly and quite unexpectedly find themselves donning pairs of ice skates made of actual ice.

Regina nearly falls over. This doesn't seem safe at all.

Emma just grins at her, that stupid grin from before, and allows herself to be pulled away by Elsa who starts zipping around the rink like she's part of it.

She watches as Anna, Kristoff, and even Sven all slide clumsily over to her.

"Do we absolutely have to do this?" she asks Anna blandly.

The pigtailed redhead nods exuberantly, taking her hand. Then she pauses, pointing at Regina's face.

"You've still, uhm, you've still got a little…mascara…running down your cheek a little…just right there…"

Regina yanks her hand out of Anna's hold and stalks off the ice in a huff, turning around to get just one more look at this ridiculous family before poofing herself to the portal, and going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more, everybody, see you next chapter...


	9. Tangible

Sometimes, Emma just likes to look at her. Not like when she's sleeping or anything because, well to be honest, she's kind of a mess when she sleeps. She twitches a lot, she kicks, she mumbles weird things, her bed hair is ridiculous and usually in Emma's face anyway so she actually  _can't_  look at her through all that.

Besides, Emma prefers it when she's awake. For a very precise, self-controlled person, she's got all this energy and light going on behind her eyes. All alive and spirited like it has a life of its own. Emma thinks maybe other people don't see it as much, just because it takes some looking for before anyone can find it. But it's there all the time, and that energy is constantly humming all over, bringing every part of her to life, just very quietly. Emma likes that it's always there, every time she looks at her— it's subtle but so very very alive.

But even though she loves it most of all when that gaze is directed at her, she still just likes looking at her sometimes when Elsa isn't aware of it. Elsa usually catches her, and while it used to make the younger woman blush, now she just smiles at her, points at her, squints her eyes and whispers, "Caught you!"

Emma actually tries to catch  _her_  a lot, just in a different way. She tries taking pictures of her— those artsy candid ones she's seen in museums. Hers aren't very good. She thinks maybe the camera lens on her phone might be scratched up or something. Or maybe it's got some other kind of damage to it— there's all number of possibilities that could be responsible for it not working all that well.

Or maybe it's just because she's only supposed to look at Elsa with her own eyes, maybe that's how this is supposed to go. It's always better that way anyway. She wishes she had some way of preserving little moments though, because sometimes she sees Elsa, or she's with Elsa, and there's something about whatever these moments are that seems almost tangible, like she could just reach out and grab hold of them and keep them somewhere. So she keeps trying with the picture taking, even with a shit phone that only really works half the time anyway.

She tries taking it out one time after they've just had sex. She starts filming Elsa's hands skimming over her skin, the corner of Elsa's mouth, the dip in her collarbone.

Elsa laughs at her and grabs the phone away from her, holding it out of reach.

"What are you doing?" she giggles.

_Nothing._

_...Keeping you._

"...Leroy was telling me he's thinking about starting up a porn shop, just thought I'd send him some nudes to get him started."

Elsa pushes her over onto her back and gets to her knees, straddling her. She has that impish smile where she's biting down on her lower lip, and she holds the phone up over Emma.

"Well we should probably get a few of you too, just for safety's sake," she says. She presses something on the phone, and then frowns.

"It's the box-thing with the circle in it, right?" she asks.

"Yeah," Emma laughs.

"And then once it's there— oh I see. How do I make it go?"

"The big white round thing on the bottom of the screen. You can't miss it, Els, I've shown you this before."

Elsa makes a sort of "whatever" face and then holds the phone over her again and presses down on, presumably, the big white round thing on the bottom of the screen.

The younger woman tips the phone back up towards herself so she can look at the picture she's taken, and seems pretty unimpressed, tossing the phone to the side. Then she leans forward over Emma, taking her hands and pressing their palms to each other, so they're both sort of pushing against one another.

"I like you better like this, without that ridiculous thing," Elsa tells her.

Emma likes  _her_  better like this too. There's sunlight coming in through the window, lighting up the side of Elsa's face, dancing through her hair and down over her skin, illuminating all that energy sparking behind her eyes. It's one of those tangible moments again. Taking pictures isn't good enough to hold onto it, she isn't sure what is.

"What's going on in that silly Swan head of yours?" Elsa asks her quietly, lacing their fingers together.

"Not much, it's pretty empty in there."

Elsa looks down at their fingers intertwined and smiles softly like she likes seeing them like that. "I'm not going anywhere, you know," she says.

Emma tilts her head up at her.

Elsa smiles. "I know that's why you keep taking all those pictures, you don't have to." She guides Emma's hands down and places them on her hips. "I'm right here. Right here and yours."

Emma grips her fingers into Elsa's waist and sits up, kissing her chest just beneath her collarbone. Elsa inhales sharply, wrapping her arms around her neck and threading her fingers through Emma's hair, dipping to kiss the top of her head.

Emma takes a moment to just breathe into her skin before winding her arm around Elsa's waist and flipping them both over as gently as she can.

Elsa still lands with a kind of  _whoompf_  sound on the mattress but she smiles up at her, craning her neck up to kiss her.

Emma returns the kiss, long, and slow, and deep, before separating just enough to start ghosting her lips across Elsa's jaw.

Elsa sighs, breath just a little shaky as Emma continues down, skimming her lips down her throat, kissing down between her breasts. The younger woman keeps her fingers tangled in her hair, arching with a small gasp as Emma begins nipping down the center of her stomach, and over to the side a little, and pressing her lips to that one place on her hipbone that always makes Elsa bite down on her lip and moan.

All of this is Emma's, Elsa isn't going anywhere. Every inch of her belongs to Emma, every inch— those are her words, those are the words Elsa keeps murmuring as Emma continues kissing lower and lower. There's no way to keep these moments individually, or separately, but she can have them all here, together in one heady, intoxicating cocktail every time she touches Elsa like this. She dips her head to taste her, moaning at almost the same time as Elsa at her scent, the feel of her. She trails one hand up Elsa's stomach as she continues to lick into her, feeling every gasp and every sigh under her hand. Elsa's stomach muscles begin to clench in short bursts and Emma starts to hear her whispering her name with each breath.

She slows her ministrations, dragging her tongue tortuously slowly up Elsa's slit, and then again even slower. And then one more time, slowest of all, ending with her lips closed around her clit, tongue lapping against it firmly.

Elsa arches almost completely off the bed with a cry, fingers buried as deep as they'll go in Emma's hair, entire body trembling against her.

Emma continues licking softly into her as she comes down, moaning contentedly when she starts to feel icy, feather-light flakes of snow landing on her back. She will never stop loving the fact that she can make Elsa become so completely unraveled that she loses control of her powers for a moment as she comes.

When Elsa gives her hair a weak tug, Emma finally lifts her head up, wiping her hand under chin and licking away what's left of Elsa's arousal on her lips. She crawls back up the bed to press into Elsa's warm body until the snow finally disappears and the room starts to warm again.

"See?" Elsa breathes. "Way better than pictures."

Emma laughs and then moans as she feels Elsa's hand skim down to press between her thighs, gliding her fingers slowly through her folds.

"Yeah, way way better than pictures," she agrees, breath hitching as Elsa continues to play her fingers against her.

Way way better. And better than just looking at her, even though she still just likes to do that too. This is how she holds onto those little moments, she thinks. Just holds onto Elsa and doesn't let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End. Thank you everybody! Hopefully for those of you who read "The Hot and Cold of It" this was a satisfactory mini sequel, and filled you with an extra little bit of fluffy joy. Stay well everybody, and thank you again
> 
> ~uisceB


End file.
